Arundhati Bhattacharya, the dynamic chairperson of State Bank of India, recently retired and with a desire to pursue PhD. Before her retirement she had stated to The Times of India that, “Your battle is half won when there are right people in the right place. Giving people their space is the key to success, as very often they will do what needs to be done.” The last year of her career was the toughest for her as dealt with unprecedented issue like demonetisation, GST, merger of some banks and so on, each of which required focus analysis and readiness to change rules depending on the feedback. Rajnish Kumar, who took over as Chairman from Bhattacharya sent a letter to all the SBI employees, stating, “Today, there is also a severe trust deficit amongst the various stakeholders in the financial ecosystem. I believe that ethics is the only way out to bridge this gap. Therefore, I urge you all, to promote moral and ethical grandeur unconditionally in your daily actions and decisions.’’
Being with the Facebook for just one year, Umang Bedi, the India MD has called it quits. In a statement, Facebook India said, “Umang Bedi has built a really strong team during his time with us”. Sandeep Bhushan, who currently serves as Director (Consumer and Media, South Asia), takes over as the interim MD. Bhushan had joined Facebook in April 2015 from Samsung Electronics. Bedi joined Facebook in July last year taking over the India business from Kirthiga Reddy who moved to the headquarters in Menlo Park, US. He was mandated to lead strategic relationships with top clients and regional agencies in the country. Prior to Facebook, Bedi served as the MD of South Asia region at Adobe. After US, India accounts for the largest base of Facebook users with well over 200 million.
D. Shivakumar, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd. has quit and joined the Aditya Birla Group as President. Pepsi gets in Ahmed El Sheikh, the Senior Vice President and General Manager for PepsiCo Egypt and Jordan, to fill in the vacancy created by Shivakumar. Shivakumar is expected to join the Birla Group soon and will be reporting directly to Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla. This $41-billion conglomerate has business spread across many sectors including telecommunications, cement, chemicals, mining, textiles, financial services, retail and e-commerce spread over 36 countries. Meanwhile, the appointment of Ahmed El Sheikh was supported by Sanjeev Chadha, the American firm’s CEO (Asia, The Middle East and Africa). Sheikh will take charge early in November while Shivakumar will continue to be with PepsiCo till the last day of this year. Shivakumar has been with PepsiCo for the past four years and has been instrumental in leading the transformation journey of the company.
India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has appointed Suresh Sethi, former Vodafone M-Pesa Managing Director, as the bank’s MD and CEO. Sethi takes over from AP Singh who had been the interim MD and CEO of IPPB since January 2017. The IPPB had targeted to setup 650 branches across country by September this year but it now aims to complete the rollout of these branches by early next year. IPPB said that Sethi had been selected by the Banks Board Bureau from amongst top contenders for the post, from both public and private sector banking and financial technologies tech professionals. Sethi has broad international experience of over 27 years in the Banking and Financial Services industry with Citigroup, YES Bank and Vodafone M-Pesa across India, Kenya, UK, Argentina and the US. He has extensively worked in the Financial Inclusion space leveraging Fintech and digital-led innovation. IPPB has been incorporated as a public limited company under the Department of Posts with 100 per cent government equity.
The rift between Nandan Nilekani and co-founder NR Narayan Murthy continued, this time the demand that the entire investigation report into the company acquiring Panaya and the hefty severance payout to former CFO Rajiv Bansal be made public. Nilekani-led board at Infosys rejected Co-founder N R Narayana Murthy’s suggestion. The company also said Nilekani had conducted a review of all the external investigations and had found no merit to the allegations of wrongdoing. This has dented as a major setback to Murthy’s long-drawn-out campaign against the manner in which the previous board under R Seshasayee and the management under previous CEO Vishal Sikka had handled the Bansal and Panaya issues. The co-founder, Murthy had suggested that the Bansal payout was not in the interest of the company as termed it as ‘hush money’, paid to buy Bansal’s silence on some critical matter, perhaps related to the cost of the Panaya acquisition or the beneficiaries in that deal. This fallout eventually resulted in a massive turmoil that led to the exit of Seshasayee, Sikka and a third of the board in August, and the return of co-founder Nilekani as chairman. On the rejection of the demand to make the full report public, the company offered the same reasons that the previous board had. According to the company, “After careful re-consideration, the company has concluded that publishing additional details of the investigation would inhibit the company’s ability to conduct effective investigations into any matter in the future. Confidentiality is critical to ensuring the candour and cooperation of whistleblowers and other participants in any investigative process. The precedent of releasing the full investigation reports could impair the cooperation of participants should the need for an investigation arise in the future”. Underlining the credibility of the investigation itself, the company disclosed more information than even what the previous board did. The company pointed out that the investigators Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Control Risks had no prior dealings with Infosys. No limitations or restrictions were placed on the investigating team from accessing information, and the company and the relevant directors and employees cooperated fully.
The former head of HR (corporate) of Cipla, Ashwani Dahiya joins the financial service company Wells Fargo, as regional VP, HR, and will be based at Hong Kong. Wells Fargo is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. It was founded in 1852 and provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial financial services in over 8,000 locations. Dahiya, who was Global Chief Talent Officer & Head of HR (corporate) Cipla was leading HR for all corporate functions and centres of excellence, for talent acquisition, talent management, performance & reward, leadership, learning & development, organisation effectiveness and employee engagement. He quit Cipla in July this year. He had joined Cipla in September 2016 from Reliance Industries, where he was Senior VP and Group Head (HR & transfoma- tion). A postgraduate from XLRI, and an economics graduate from SRCC, Delhi, Dahiya has spent more than seven years in Singapore as VP HR, Japan, Asia Pacific and Australia, for American Express, wherein he led significant organisation transformation efforts globally, which led to multi-million-dollar contribution.
Jack Bismohun with extensive IT background in areas of consulting, product implementation and development has been appointed as the Head of Business Development of the Kale Logistics Solutions (KLS) for Africa region. He will be based in Mauriti us and will strive for the growth of the company and develop market penetration across Africa. “Jack is a great addition to the team. He brings with him experience in tapping and developing an important geography, Africa. At Kale Logistics, we are customer-focused and are growing fast. With Jack’s presence we would like to further accelerate this growth,” said Vineet Malhotra, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions. Jack is a seasoned professional with great knowledge about the African logistics market. He brings with him more than two decades of experience in business development. He was formerly also associated with Mauriti us Network Services and Satyam. He was actively involved in delivering electronic solutions, primarily to governments, customs and private logistics companies and has worked in several African and Franco phone markets. “I decided to join Kale Logistics after I was introduced to its wide spectrum of solutions which are at the forefront of emerging trends in logistics, airports and transportation industries. Experience in the logistics domain will bring value across Africa and I am tremendously honoured to be a part of a fast-growing IT solutions provider. I am happy to bring my knowledge and experience in the African markets where it is already positioned by developing further its presence and success. I am impressed with its fast growth and demands for its solution globally. I am looking forward to be part of this venture by positioning the company across Africa,” said Jack Bismohun, about his new venture in his career. Kale Logistics Solutions Private Limited is a leading Global IT solution provider focused on the logistics, airports and transportation industry. Its broad solution spectrum ranges from ‘Internal Business Automation Systems’ to ‘Community Solutions’ that help various players in the logistics value chain from shipper to consignee to communicate and transact with each other electronically.
Online eyewear firm Lenskart has roped in Katrina Kaif as its first-ever brand ambassador. The Bollywood star will be the face of Lenskart for the next two years and would feature in the brand’s new campaign. Piyush Bansal, the Lenskart.com Founder and CEO said, “We were looking for someone who naturally fits the Lenskart brand proposition of addictive playfulness, and Katrina has been the right person.” This eyewear was founded in the year 2010, and has over 300 stores across the country. It has been funded by venture capitalists like IDG Ventures and Ronnie Screwvala-led Unilazer Ventures, TPG Growth and TR Capital, IFC and Premji Invest. Commenting on the role, Katrina said, “Lenskart is a brand loved by Indian youth and this is a conscious effort to connect with fashion-savvy Indians.”
International Monetary Fund’s chief Christine Lagarde is very positive of the Indian economy, as she has termed the country on ‘very solid track’ in the mid-term, days after the IMF lowered its growth forecast for the current and the next year. Calling the shots on the two major recent reforms in India, the demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) as the main weapons, Lagarde said it is hardly surprising that there is a little bit of a short-term slowdown as a result. The IMF last week lowered India’s growth projection to 6.7 per cent in 2017, 0.5 percentage points less than its previous two forecasts in April and July, attributing it to demonetisation and introduction of the GST. It also lowered the country’s growth for 2018 to 7.4 per cent, 0.3 percentage points less than its previous two projections in July and April. She said, “Turning to India, we have slightly downgraded India, but we believe that India for medium and long-term is on a growth track that is much more solid as a result of the structural reforms that have been conducted in the last couple of years.”
Sukhdeep Aurora joined ANAROCK Property Consultants as its chief people officer, calling it a strategic career move. He was the HR head for India at Jones Lang LaSalle. Aurora in his new role is looking at building up on the people front for the rapidly growing business. “JLL is a great organisation and I really enjoyed my journey there. It was a tough decision to move. However, for the want of fresh challenges, I decided to join ANAROCK, which is a growing startup,” said Aurora after his four year stint at Jones Lang LaSalle. At ANAROCK, business has grown tremendously, starting with 150 people which has now reached a headcount of 700. While Aurora shares that the expansion is still on and the company is aiming for a headcount of 1000 by the end of this year, he also explains that they are hiring for cultural fit. An engineering graduate and a postgraduate in HR from IIM-Indore, Aurora began his career in 2003 as a manager-HR with Torrent Pharma. Later, he moved to Infosys in 2006 as the Senior HR Manager (BP-HR). Aurora has been with AEGON Religare Life Insurance as the AVP HR, where he led a team of HR professionals to manage HR operations pan India, for 1800-plus employees across 54 locations. Prior to joining JLL in 2013, Aurora had also worked with Abbott India as the Head-Business HR.
Rajorshi Ganguli, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories’ Vice President and head commercial HR, has moved to Alkem Laboratories as the President and Global Head-HR, and will be based at Mumbai. A seasoned campaigner in the field, Ganguli has over two decades of overall experience and the major tenure has been with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories for over 13 years. He is a seasoned HR professional with exposure across geographies and domains. “Alkem Laboratories is a billion-dollar organisation and is growing rapidly. Being a part of its growth aspirations, I will be leading global HR for the company, supporting it in its journey towards the next orbit of growth,” said Ganguli about his new assignment. Ganguli had spent over eight years at Bharat Petroleum Corporation as a senior officer, before joining Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. An honours graduate in geology, physics and maths from Ranchi University, and a postgraduate in human resources from the Xavier Institute of Social Service, Ganguli started his professional journey in 1994 as an officer-HR with Usha Martin Industries, before moving on to Bharat Petroleum Corporation.
by Joe Williams
