Founder of D-Mart ranked 2nd richest by Forbes; 6th by Bloomberg

Radhakishan Damani, Founder, Avenue Super Marts and promoter of D-Mart chain of retail stores has grabbed much attention as the 2nd richest person as per Forbes Real Time Billionaires Index (FRTBI) amongst Indian Billionaires and India’s 6th richest person with a net worth of $11.9 billion according to data from Bloomberg Billionaires Index (BBI). The Forbes list-based net value increase of Damani’s shares by $9.6 crores touching the value of $1,780 crores. The stock value enhancement of Avenue Super Marts is attributed to the company acquiring Rs.4000 crores recently, by selling a percentage of its shares. Other A-Listed billionaires include Shiv Nadar with $1,650 crores, Uday Kotak with $1,490 crores, Gautham Adani with $1,410 crores and Lakshmi Mittal with $1,210 crores. The BBI states that Damani’s net worth is “now more than Gautam Adani ($10.8 billion) and Sunil Mittal ($9.6 billion)”. Damani, is also known as an astute stock market investor with stakes in India Cements, VST Industries and Simplex Infrastructures among others. Damani owns 37.19% stake or 23.34 crore shares in Avenue Supermarts with 3.54% holding in the company by his wife Shrikantadevi Radhakishan Damani and 8.12% stake by his brother Gopikishan Shivkishan Damani. The first D-Mart store was launched in Mumbai in 2002 and currently runs 176 stores across India. Avenue Super Marts has posted a profit of `976 crores in the last fiscal with a cumulative revenue of Rs.19,916 crores.

Siddhant Narayan to head OnePlus marketing wing

OnePlus, the technology company has appointed Siddhant Narayan as head of marketing for India and will lead the brand’s ongoing marketing efforts in building its connected ecosystem business in India. His responsibilities would be garnered towards strengthening OnePlus media and creative strategies, brand positioning with added engagement with its community culture. In his previous role, Narayan was marketing head for the Indian subcontinent at Daniel Wellington, having launched the brand in India and creating an omnichannel marketing strategy. He has also worked with Reliance Jio and was an integral part of Nike’s marketing team.

Puneet Sharma is new CFO, Axis Bank

The Board of Axis Bank has approved the appointment of Puneet Sharma as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) with effect from March 6, as announced by the private sector bank in a regulatory filing. Sharma brings in over 23 years of experience across banks, financial institutions and consulting. Sharma will replace Jairam Sridharan, “who has resigned as the group executive and CFO of the bank, with effect from the close of business hours on March 5,” as per the filing. Prior to joining Axis Bank, Sharma spent 12 years at Tata Capital as a senior management functionary and was the group CFO since 2014, responsible for financial control, financial planning & accounting and taxation amongst other deliverables. An alumnus of Indian School of Business, Hyderabad,

Sharma has had a stint with Citibank in areas such as structured cash solutions, treasury operations, and risk monitoring. The recent move follows Axis Bank’s recent restructuring drive as it pushes for more growth with the result that the bank has seen numerous resignations in recent past. An exodus of 15,000 employees over the last few months also included executives in the mid and branch-level positions.

Cognizant’s Santosh Thomas Resigns

Santosh Thomas, EVP and President of Global Growth Markets, Cognizant has resigned as per internal communications within the company. Thomas’s exit is being linked to the company’s restructuring as well as a change in its strategy. “I’m writing today to announce that following a 21-year career with Cognizant, Santosh Thomas, EVP, President of Global Growth Markets (GGM), will leave the company to pursue other interests,” CEO Brian Humphries told employees in an email. Manoj Mehta, who currently leads the company’s continental Europe business, will take over as interim head of global growth markets while the firm scouts for a successor to Thomas. “We have launched a formal process to evaluate both internal and external candidates to identify a new President of GGM,” said Humphries. Since Humphries took over in April 2019, Cognizant’s top deck has witnessed a slew of exits and changes. According to Humphries, the top management churn was to be expected, and in some cases, even needed as the company makes significant changes to its operating strategy. Humphries said Thomas had worked to scale the company’s international business to $4 billion in revenue.

NRN Murthy’s son-in-law is new UK Finance Minister

Rishi Sunak, the 39-year-old son-in-law of Infosys co-founder, N R Narayana Murthy has been elevated as UK’s new finance minister. “The Queen has been graciously pleased to approve the appointment of Rt. Hon. Rishi Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer,” read the official Downing Street statement. Sunak, a three-time MP from Richmond in Yorkshire, is married to N R N Murthy’s daughter Akshata. Before his first entry into the UK Parliament in 2015, he had served Britain in the capacity of Chief Secretary to Treasury and gradually rose up Britain’s Conservative Party ranks as a staunch ‘Brexiteer’ and supported UK PM Boris Johnson’s strategy to leave the European Union (EU). Before his political stint, he had worked for the investment bank, Goldman Sachs and had co-founded a 1-billion-GBP (Great Britain Pound) global investment firm whilst also investing in small British businesses. Born in 1980 in Southampton in Hampshire, he studied at the exclusive private school, Winchester College. He then pursued Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the Oxford University an academic combination seen as a viable route for most political aspirants in Britain. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious Stanford University. “From working in my mum’s tiny chemist shop to my experience building large businesses, I have seen how we should support free enterprise and innovation to ensure Britain has a stronger future,” Sunak had said during the Brexit referendum.

MARKISH ARUN APPOINTED ASVP, ENGINEERING AT ZOOMCAR

Markish Arun has taken over as Vice President of Engineering at Zoomcar, India’s self-drive mobility platform and will be responsible for all engineering initiatives and building competent teams. “I am very pleased to start this new phase of my career with Zoomcar and excited to see what urban mobility has in the store for me. The kind of market, demand and value proposition that Zoomcar has created across the country is commendable. I look forward to further enhance the brand’s market trajectory with my contributions,” said Markish. With close to two decades of engineering experience, having held techno functional areas for over 15 years, he has had previous experiences with Goibibo and Makemytrip as Senior Director of Engineering, leading supply-side engineering and product initiatives. Markish also co-founded Magicrooms.in, a real-time inventory distribution engine for hotels in India, which was later sold off to Yatra.com in 2011. He also co-founded Koruko.com, an IoT-based retail engagement platform, which was later spun off as Trip38.com. “Cutting edge technology has always been our priority and Markish’s appointment will further our already dominant lead on the technical platform side as we are doubling down on investing for 100k+ cars on the platform. Markish brings a wealth of relevant industry knowledge to the company that is highly valued. I believe that under his leadership, the teams will become highly efficient and am confident that he will drive the brand to the top and help in transform-ing the paradigm of self-drive mobility in India,” said Greg Moran, CEO and Co-Founder, Zoomcar.

Mastercard’s Chairman confident about digital paying platforms

Ajay Banga will helm office as the Chairman, having held office for 10 years as the CEO of Mastercard. “I have always said I will give this 10 year period if the board wants me there and I have had a great run. Life is 50% luck I have said that often. I have been lucky to be here. The other 50% is what you do with your luck. As a company, we have seized our opportunities. The thing a leader does very well is to develop a good bunch of people; we have had several very good people in the company. And I am convinced that Michael (Miebach) can take the benchmark to a whole new plane. It’s a properly planned succession something you don’t see enough of these days,” said Banga. On digital payment platforms, he said that out of the total 65 million merchants in India, only 5-6 million accept digital payments and this opens up greater scope for expansion. “You need the fintech part, the ability to provide the consumers an easy way to connect with their money. My general view is that there is much more required, like the acceptance infrastructure across the merchant ecosystem. We are working closely with the Confederation of All India Traders, which has 65 million merchants, to help increase acceptance. The government is actively working on expanding digital payments in trains and buses” he said.

MS CEO Nadella pitches for the startup market

Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella’s recently concluded three-day India visit pressed the agenda to decode the future of technology in India. Despite his visit coinciding with that of US President Donald Trump, ‘The Tech Decoded’ Summit at Mumbai reverberated a buzz on India’s startup ecosystem. Nadella addressed around 700 developers and engineers on Microsoft’s tech tool offerings to an audience that primarily consisted of startups and propounded how Microsoft’s Azure cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its Dynamics 365 software application has the potential to turn around their businesses into profitable domains. “It is very fascinating on how the Indian startups are leveraging technology and have the potential to create a global impact,” Nadella said. He noted that the time is ripe for technology to drive an impact in agriculture, education, healthcare as he shared testimonials from promising entrepreneurs from Punjab and Tamil Nadu who have used their technology for impactful business goals. He said “In the decade gone by, we understood the importance of consumer economy...wondering if it is the only economy. The business model which was most successful during that period was the aggregator business model or the marketplaces. Is that enough? Clearly not!” he said, making a case for a cross-sectoral impact of technology, which will broaden the productivity gains. “To me, it boils down to how every organisation in India can ride this wave, build their own tech intensity,” he said.

Manoj Jain assumes office as CMD GAIL India

Manoj Jain has taken charge as Chairman & Managing Director of the government owned ‘maharatna’ GAIL (India). This follows the recent clearance given by the appointments committee of the cabinet for his candidature as the CMD of the gas utility PSU. He replaces Ashutosh Karnatak who will be moving up to join APTEL (Appellate Tribunal for Electricity) as member technical (oil and gas). Jain assumes office at a time when the government is proposing to split the company into two separate entities for transportation and marketing functions: with the possibility of divesting stakes in the transportation entity to a strategic partner. This makes Jain’s position as an old-timer and CMD more crucial for the smooth transitioning while retaining its market hold in the proposed divested entity. In his previous role as Director (Business Development), he was responsible for building GAIL’s business portfolio in India and abroad, Merger and Acquisition, Petrochemical O&M and Expansion, Exploration & Production, R&D, StartUp, Health Safety & Environment Management, Quality Management, Project Development including feasibility study and investment approval for new pipelines, process plants, renewables, etc. He is also the current Chairman of GAIL Global (USA) Inc. (GGUI), GAIL Global (USA) LNG LLC (GGULL) and Konkan LNG (KLPL).A mechanical engineer with an MBA in Operations Management, Jain joined GAIL as a Graduate Engineer Trainee in 1985 and rose through the ranks to his current position.

Ashish Dhawan

New CEO Shantanu Ghosh and Chair Ashish Dhawan to steer Social Finance Global Network

Social Finance Global Network (SFGN) and The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG) has appointed Shantanu Ghosh, as the new CEO and Ashish Dhawan as the new Chair for the non-profit company.

Shantanu will bring in three decades of business and leadership experience, having held prior roles at Genpact, GE, Unilever and PricewaterhouseCoopers. In the first half of his career, he professed as finance specialist with his last corporate stint as CFO for GE, India. “I sincerely believe that there is need and the environment is opportune to mobilise non-philanthropic capital at scale to help accelerate the journey to the Sustainable Development Goals. It will require intensive collaboration and diverse talent from all sectors governments, non-profits and impact investors to scale outcome-focused and SDG-aligned impact programs. SF India can play a significant catalyst role and am personally thankful to have the opportunity to give back to the community, the desire for which led me to the social sector,” said Shantanu. Ashish Dhawan, Chair, Social Finance India, Founder and Chairman of Central Square Foundation (CSF) and a Founding Member of Ashoka University worked for 20 years in the investment management business and ran one of India’s leading private equity funds, ChrysCapital. “I am personally very excited by the prospect of improving the delivery of social outcomes in India through innovative financing instruments. We welcome Shantanu and I will work with him to drive the organization to deliver impact at scale,” said Ashish.

key Leadership shuffles at Universal Music India Group

Vinit Thakkar, Senior Vice President (SVP), Universal Music India (UMI) has been promoted to the newly created position of COO, India and South Asia. UMI, a division of Universal Music Group (UMG) has announced expansion of its leadership team within India and South Asia. Vinit will work closely with Devraj Sanyal, MD & CEO, UMI India and South Asia and drive the company’s overall content strategy, strategic initiatives and operational efficiency. In other internal moves, Gaurav Chaturvedi has been appointed as Vice President, Domestic Labels, UMG India and will be responsible for leading label activity, strategy and releases for all domestic UMI labels. Also, Pranav Thakker has been appointed as General Manager, New Business Development at Universal Music Group Brands (UMGB) for India and South Asia and will report to Preeti Nayyar, Vice President, New Business. These executive appointments by UMI are expected to accelerate the company’s focus on growing the entire music eco-system, including recorded music, music publishing, production, live events, brand partnerships and merchandising efforts, throughout India. “The addition of Gaurav and Pranav to our senior management team will help expand the boundaries of commercial success for our recording artists, label teams and amplify the opportunities for local and international artists to reach new fans, both here in India, and also around the world”, said Sanyal.