Mukesh Ambani’s race getting past Li Kashing to become Asia’s second-richest man has investors rallying behind his efforts to arm India’s poor with cheap data-loaded phones. Some analysts are beginning to focus on the costs of his ambition. The Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Mukesh Ambani has added $12.1 billion to his wealth this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as shares of his refining-to-telecom company surged. Spurring the rally on is optimism that a new $23 phone launched last month will expand the market for Ambani’s fourth generation mobile network into India’s hinterland. The whistles and applause that greeted the JioPhone obscured the fact that by one measure the company’s debt has climbed to at least a 15-year high. The telecom business, Ambani’s seven-year labour of love, has sucked in more than $31 billion in investments and is yet to earn him and his shareholders any profits. It’s contributed to a near tripling of the group’s total debt since March 2012 and sparked a vicious price war in the world’s second-largest mobilephone market. About 90% of Reliance’s revenues continues to come from its legacy refining and petrochemicals units, with retail, media and energy exploration contributing the rest. Ambani described Jio as ‘a jewel among Reliance assets’ during the company’s annual general meeting early this year. “Its business and societal value will grow immensely over the next decade,” he said. “Jio will become India’s largest provider of data service, products and application platforms,” he added. Jio took just nine months after launching with a free introductory offer to rope in 117.3 million users and become India’s fourth largest operator, according to government data compiled by Bloomberg. Optimism about the telecom upstart’s prospects grew after Ambani announced initial pricing for the service in February, sparking an almost 50% surge in Reliance shares.
A veteran of Apple who has put in three decades in the company, Deirdre O’Brien has been appointed Vice President of People. She had joined Apple in 1988. As part of the new role, Deirdre O’Brien will be responsible for handling almost all HR functions at Apple, including talent development, recruitment, benefits, compensation, business support and handling Apple University. She will report to Tim Cook, Apple CEO. Prior to this appointment, she was working as Vice President for the worldwide sales and operations of the company. She has a huge experience and is well versed with company culture and practices. Commenting on the appointment, Tim Cook said, “As long as I’ve been at Apple, Deirdre has been the glue that bonds our operations, sales, marketing and finance teams to deliver products to our customers. She is a superb leader and I’m thrilled she will be bringing her experience and talent to this critical role.” O’Brien said she is very excited to lead Apple’s team of 1,20,000 incredibly talented people around the world, who are motivated to do amazing things every day.
An economist picked by none other than the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Vice Chairman of the government’s main policy think-tank NITI Aayog, 64-year-old Arvind Panagariya, stepped down after 30 months in the job and returned to Columbia University, New York. The Indian-born, US educated economist was named by Modi in January 2015 as the first manager of the Policy Commission, which replaced an earlier body responsible for drawing up Soviet-style five-year economic plans. PM Modi sees NITI Aayog as an enabler of his brand of ‘cooperative federalism’, coordinating reforms with India’s 29 states and drafting a new long term development strategy. In practice, the commission’s performance has been sketchy, and change incremental. So far, it has only circulated a draft of a proposed three-year ‘Action Agenda’. Panagariya said he expected a successor to be named. A person familiar with the matter said the economist had spoken to Modi, whose agreement on his departure was seen as a formality.
C S Ghosh, Managing Director and CEO of Bandhan Bank has advised the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to select the best Chartered Accountants, saying that this would not add to their cost but is an investment in the long run. “The signature of a reputed CA or CA firm boosts banks’ confidence,” he said. Ghosh, while addressing the CII-organised MSME FinFest in Kolkata, spoke in favour of setting up of reputed and efficient training institutes to recruit cadre comprising ‘simple graduates’ who would be willing to go to the villages. The conference was attended by members of various MSME units, senior government officials and bank executives. His MSME mantra was that these units need to come out of their family managed format and incorporate professional management, transparency and good governance to help them to win any bank’s trust. Once funds are disbursed, MSMEs need to be in touch with their banks as loans might not be an immediate requirement but the long term relationship would ensure goodwill.
The panel also witnessed speakers the like Siva Kumaravel, General Manager, Syndicate Bank who admitted to the problem of easy availability of credit. Ashish Agarwal, Chairman, CII Eastern Region MSME Subcommittee and Executive Director, OriPlast Ltd took up the ‘Rebuild East, Invest in Development’ as the theme of CII Eastern Region for 2017 and strongly felt that “MSMEs will play a vital role towards achieving it.” Indranil Choudhury, Member, CII National Council for MSME and Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Lexplosion Solutions also underscored the need to strengthen the entire support structure by way of mentoring, financing, quality standards, marketing inputs and technology acquisition for MSMEs.
Axis Bank’s board has approved a fourth three-year term for Shikha Sharma as MD and CEO with effect from June 1, 2018. The board’s move, which comes nearly a year ahead of Sharma’s term coming to a close, appears to be aimed at quelling speculation on the future leadership. The bank said that the board had taken the decision subject to compliance with prescribed formalities and receipt of regulatory approval. There had been speculations about Sharma continuing after reports that the bank had appointed Egon Zhender to identify CEO candidates for the board to consider. Axis Bank had responded to the news, stating that the search for candidates was part of a process and it does not preclude Sharma from being reappointed. Sharma has over three decades of experience, a large part of which was with the ICICI group where she began her career. Besides being part of the start up team in ICICI Securities, Sharma was the founding CEO of ICICI Prudential Life, which she led for close to a decade. She was appointed CEO of Axis Bank in 2009.
The Indian Davis Cup team will get an American connect as they will travel to the indoor courts of the University of Colombia in New York a week before their crucial Group Play-Off tie against Canada in Edmonton, which is scheduled to start from September 15. Incidentally, this is the first time a preparatory camp for the Davis Cup team makes it to a foreign soil, according to skipper Mahesh Bhupathi. “The team will assemble in New York before they leave for Edmonton for the camp,” he said, and went on to add, “I wanted to get the boys together and practice indoors before the tie.” The AITA had approached the Sports Ministry to fund the week-long training camp and provide the financial support. It will be the fourth straight year that India will be in contention for a place in the elite 16-nation World Group. India lost to Spain (2016), Czech Republic (2015) and Serbia (2014) in their last three attempts at home. The last time India played an away World Group Play-Off tie was against Japan in 2011, when it lost 1-4 to the hosts. Elaborating the move, the Davis Cup team coach Zeeshan Ali said that Canada is far away, and there are possibilities that the players will be jet-lagged, which could take a long period to recover, so having a camp close to the venue would make a difference. More importantly, since the US Open will be on, the players will also get to play with the world’s best players during their practice. “Only Rohan and Yuki Bhambri will be there (US Open) and others will have to travel to New York from Asian territory. The more we practice, the better for us,” Zeeshan added. Meanwhile, Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni will be back in the team, having missed the Uzbekistan tie in Bengaluru in April this year. Prajnesh Gunneswaran and N Sriram Balaji, who made their Davis Cup debuts in Bengaluru are likely to be reserve members.
Bollywood star Aamir Khan donated RS. 25 lakhs to the Assam Government for its flood relief operations which has so far killed over 80 people and the devastating catastrophe has rendered many homeless. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal took to Twitter to thank Aamir Khan for his kind act as a responsible citizen. The Bollywood star voiced his concerns over various social issues plaguing the country, and had recently posted a video on Twitter asking people to come out in support of flood victims in both Assam and Gujarat. The 52-yearold ‘Dangal’ star said, “Friends, many areas of Assam and Gujarat have been affected by heavy floods. And our brothers and sisters there, are facing a lot of difficulties. Lots of lives have also been lost and there has been a huge financial loss too. We are helpless in front of nature but we can help those staying there.” He appealed to his fans to help people staying in Assam and Gujarat by contributing to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. The Centre has already announced an ex-gratia of RS. 2 lakhs each under the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund for the next of kin of people killed and RS. 50,000 to seriously injured persons in the recent flood in Assam. The flood situation in the state has improved but one more person was killed in Morigaon district taking the toll in the natural calamity to 83, including eight in Guwahati. According to Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), about 5,000 people are still affected in Lakhimpur and Jorhat districts and 366 people are taking shelter in four relief camps in the two districts. This year, two waves of floods in the state affected around 25 lakh people from 29 districts prompting the administration to set up 1,098 distribution centres and relief camps, where about 1.32 lakh people took shelter.
Sunitha Lal has been appointed the Head of Human Resources by Ather Energy, the hardware startup. Her immediate focus in her new role will be to define the culture at Ather, as they scale up production. She was with Matrimony.com as CHRO. Commenting on the move, Sunitha Lal said, “It is rare to find an opportunity where you can be a part of culture building of not just an organisation, but a nascent industry as well. To weave a pervasive culture across everything we do, be it business processes to employee assimilation is fantastic.” She went on to add, “The most enticing aspect is the chance to outline what Ather stands for and perpetuate that through our frameworks, values and our other programmes.” Expressing his views on the appointment, Tarun Mehta, CEO of Ather Energy said, “Lal comes with 20 years of experience across all HR verticals. She is a strong coach and has a significant background in organisational and leadership development, performance and coaching systems and frameworks. It’s the perfect time for us to focus on our team, on development and on the systems that enable this.” In 2007, Lal was appointed Vice President and HR head at AIG Systems Solutions, which is an offshore development centre for AIG. There, she focused on organisational development and succession planning initiatives. An alumnus of Madurai Kamaraj University, Lal took over as the Chief Human Resources Officer at Matrimony.com in 2012. There she was involved in organisation-wide decision making to shape business agenda on performance and growth. Lal played a key role in identifying, developing and implementing organisation effectiveness and change management initiatives.
Geethaa Ghaneckar, who has been the Director-HR for the Raymond Lifestyle Business for over eight years moves to Raheja Universal as the CHRO. She joins at a time when the industry is moving towards greater professionalism and standardisation, experiencing a significant transformation in terms of the work environment. She said, “I am looking forward to leading the people agenda in the firm’s journey towards becoming a leading player in Platform Projects.” Her tasks will include building a professional work environment, creating a transformative performance management process, building a high-quality leadership team across verticals and nurturing a culture that fosters innovation. Ghaneckar has been working closely with the stakeholders and the leadership team to design and implement HR strategy in line with the business strategy, and the future work scenarios in the VUCA space at Raymond. She has also been handling a team of 100 HR professionals spread across ten different locations and managing peaceful industrial relations across nine manufacturing facilities. Before her stint with Raymond, Ghaneckar was the VP-Learning & Organisation Development (OD) at AIG. She was the head-learning and OD at RPG Enterprises for two years. Being a certified OD trainer from the National Training Lab, she has also worked with Manford and Aptech in the past.
The Vice President and Head of Human Resources at Ericsson India, Sameer Khanna, will now manage global HR for Product Area (PA) and Managed Services (MS) network, PA managed services IT and MS strategy. He will be based at the company’s headquarters in Sweden. Khanna has been working with Ericsson India since 2012, before which he was the head-HR at Jones Lang LaSalle. Prior to that, he has also worked with Logica, which is now CGI, as well as Britannia, Hewitt and NIIT. Commenting on his new role in the company, Khanna said, “This opportunity to interface and work with different nationalities, driving global systems and processes with managed services from the headquarters perspective, will help me contribute globally and enrich my HR experience. I am looking forward to the global responsibility and learning the new role will offer.” Global mobility is offered to top performing employees at Ericsson as part of their holistic development and talent management within the company. That makes Ericsson a truly global workplace with presence in more than 180 countries.
By Joe Williams
