PVR on-boards former global IMAX CEO

PVR, India’s leading cinema exhibition company has onboarded its first-ever American director with Greg Foster, former CEO of IMAX Entertainment and senior EVP of IMAX Corp. With Foster’s appointment, PVR has expanded its board to nine members. PVR expects to leverage Foster’s relationship with global filmmakers, studios and exhibitors and is seen as a tremendous asset for developing PVR’s future strategies. Foster owns and operates Foster + Crew, a Los Angeles based entertainment and media consulting firm with prestigious clientele such as Apple and C. J. Foster has been with IMAX since 2001, playing a key role in building the company’s overall strategy, with a particular emphasis on all its global entertainment activities.

Indian American professor is Dean, Harvard B-School

Srikant Datar has been appointed as the Dean of the prestigious Harvard Business School (HBS), becoming the second consecutive Indian American Dean of the iconic 112-year-old institution. A chartered accountant and an esteemed alumnus of Stanford University and IIM Ahmedabad, Datar will assume office from January 1, 2021. He becomes the 11th dean in the 112-year history of the iconic HBS, succeeding Nitin Nohria, who will hold office till December 2020. The Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Business Administration and senior associate Dean for University Affairs at HBS, Datar is an innovative educator, a scholar, and deeply experienced as an academic leader. A leading thinker on the future of business education, he has served across a range of leadership roles in his over 25 years career with HBS since joining the Harvard faculty in 1996.

Under his leadership, he has also forged novel collaborations with other Harvard Schools. He has held key positions, as HBS’s senior associate Dean responsible for recruiting, faculty development, and executive education, research, and university affairs. He’s also had a successful stint as an assistant professor and associate professor with the Carnegie Mellon Graduate School of Industrial Administration from 1984 to 1989. He is a recipient of the George Leland Bach Teaching Award. From 1989 to 1996, he was a faculty with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he became the Littlefield Professor of Accounting and Management and gained recognition and received the school’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He holds a master’s degrees in statistics (1983), economics (1984) and a PhD in business (1985) from Stanford University.

Shoppers Stop ropes in Westside’s Venugopal

Venugopal G Nair takes over as MD & CEO of Shoppers Stop, replacing Rajiv Suri as he steps in to spearhead the retail chain’s next phase of expansion. Rajiv Suri relinquished his post two years after being at the helm of India’s oldest department store chain. Shoppers Stop is expected to benefit from Nair’s exceptional leadership track record, including strong international exposure, deep strategic expertise, and proven experience of driving transformation and managing technological disruption. Nair is an accomplished international retail leader with 27 years of experience gathered working with the retail and apparel industry across South Asia and Europe. Prior to Shoppers Stop, Nair was the CEO of Westside at Trent Limited. In his earlier tenures, he has also held leadership positions with conglomerates such as Marks & Spencer Reliance India, Madura Garments and Arvind Mills. Nair is an alumnus of S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai and NIT, Calicut.

Sudha Murty to retire from Infosys Foundation

Sudha Murty, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation is all set to retire on December 31, 2021, that would mark the end of her 25-years of association with the foundation. Murty has been the Chairperson since of the inception of Infosys Foundation in 1996, also celebrates 25 years of its legacy. With her exit from the Infosys Foundation, Murthy is now charting a stronger philanthropic vow through the family-held Murty Foundation. “Nothing will change for me, as far as I’m concerned, my philanthropy will continue. We will focus on areas like healthcare and education, the same as Infosys Foundation”, she said. Infosys Foundation was started with INR 32 lakh, which has now grown as much as INR 400 crore. Murty launched the Aarohan Social Innovation Awards that recognises and rewards individuals, teams or NGOs in developing noteworthy solutions to impact India’s underprivileged lot. “When the Foundation started, I was the mother and the Foundation was my child. Today, as I leave, I am satisfied to see that the Foundation has become a mother and I the child,” she said. Infosys Foundation has focused its work on education, healthcare, rural development, mid-day meal schemes and other activities. The foundation has built over 14,000 toilets, over 60,000 libraries for the underprivileged, as well as several hospitals, schools, orphanages and rehabilitation centres. “The Infosys Foundation showed me about my country so well because I worked with the poorest of the poor. It’s a great example for people to follow, you can have a lean CSR team, just about six to seven people and we used every pie for transparency and betterment of people,” she said.

Sanjeev Krishan to take over as PwC India Chairman

Sanjeev Krishan will take over as Chairman of PwC India for a 4-year term commencing January 1, 2021. Krishan will be succeeding PwC’s current Chairman Shyamal Mukherjee, who is slated to step down on December 31, 2020 after completion of his term. Prior to his new designation, Krishan has been the ‘deals’ leader and his commitment has significantly helped build a sustainable practise for PwC’s future. A PwC stalwart, Krishan has been with the company for almost three decades, having joined the firm as an articled trainee in 1991 and in 2006, became a partner at PwC India. “People, technology and innovation would be at the core of all that I intend to do in the next few years, for responsible and sustainable growth for us as a firm, our clients and society,” said Krishan. He has over the years successfully led the firm’s Transactions and Private Equity business, catapulting PwC to a prominent position amongst Private Equity clients and their investee companies.

Sanket Ray to head Coca-Cola India and SW Asia

Sanket Ray takes over as President, Coca-Cola India and South-West Asia (SWA), as part of the global beverage company’s crucial leadership rejigs. Ray, currently CEO of Coca-Cola, China replaces T Krishnakumar, who has been now been designated as the Chairman of Coca-Cola India. These new leadership changes are a part of the company’s global restructuring that began in September 2020 and will be effective from January 1, 2021. In other moves Coca-Cola has appointed Arnab Roy, as the new Vice President, Marketing for its India and SWA operations, succeeding Vijay Parasuraman, who will lead Coca-Cola’s global Integrated Marketing Experience division. Samarapperuma Padmal has taken over as the new head of strategy, while Harsh Bhutani will lead the finance team. Nishi Kulshreshtha Chaturvedi has been designated as the HRD Head and Amit Tibrewal will be spearheading business transformation functions in India and South-West Asia. Greishma Singh, current Director of Strategy and Insights at Coca-Cola South Pacific will take charge of customer and commercial leadership functions in India. Enrique Ackermann, the current Technical Operations Director at the Coca-Cola’s Latin Center Business Unit, will helm the technical and innovation functions for Coca-Cola India and SWA. Sundeep Bajoria, current Vice President, South West Asia Operations has been appointed as the head of franchise operations in India, while Reetima Rakyan will lead franchise operations in South West Asia. The beverage maker had announced that it would halve its operating units and lay off 4,000 workers as the business has been badly impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Unilever’s Kuruvilla roped in as CEO, Raymond Lifestyle

Textile major Raymond Group has appointed Joe Kuruvilla as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Raymond Lifestyle its flagship apparel division that includes popular brands Park Avenue, Parx, Colour Plus, Ethnix and Khadi. Kuruvilla’s induction into Raymond reinforces its management team wherein he is expected to drive the umbrella brand’s strategy, vision, product portfolio enhancements and global market development. Raymond’s Ganesh Kumar, who has been recently appointed as CEO, will report to Kuruvilla for executing the transformation that the company has embarked upon as it emerges from the nationwide post-pandemic lockdown. While Kuruvilla will be responsible for digital adoption and alignment to emerging consumer needs, Ganesh Kumar will have focused responsibility on internal organisation, omnichannel distribution, driving operational efficiencies and enhanced process alignment. Prior to joining Raymond, Kuruvilla was the Vice President - digital transformation, media and e-commerce for Unilever’s Eastern European operations. His brings in his lifetime experiences working for MNC Unilever PLC where he had started out as a management trainee. In a key leadership role, he was Vice President - Marketing (East Europe) for Unilever’s Home Care and Beauty & Personal Care, driving its fastest growth in the European Union. Kuruvilla is a Civil Engineer with an MBA in Marketing from Pune University, an Executive Education from IIM-A and Columbia Business School, New York.

Vishant Vora quits Vodafone Idea

Vishant Vora, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) has quit the recently rebranded company as VI. While Vora relinquished his decade-long stint, he is said to have played a vital role in the telecom major’s integration with Idea Cellular. While the company seeks an executive to replace Vora, Rajinder Singh, executive vice president Technology at VIL will officiate as the interim CTO. Vora, considered as a prominent member of the evolution of the telecom industry, will continue with the Mumbai-based VI until October 31, 2020. As CTO, Vora played a significant role over the last two years and has now decided to return home to the US. He has been a part of many technology transformations, across both Vodafone India, and Vodafone Idea in the past two years. The company has recently completed the world’s largest network integration by setting up future-ready network built on 5G architecture. Leading from the front, Vora has worked towards integrating on the company’s technology which is considered as one of the biggest and most complex integrations attempted anywhere in the world.

Byju's and Zerodha cofounders, debut on Forbes list

Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath, the founders of Zerodha, India’s biggest stock brokerage company (by volume of trade) have made their first entry into the coveted Forbes’ list of India’s 100 richest 2020. At an estimated net worth of $1.55 billion and wealth of over INR 11.3 crore, the brothers have become the youngest A-listers amongst Forbes rankers. They also run an asset management company (AMC), True Beacon. The Kamath brothers were the first to have initiated India’s first online discount brokerage firm via Zerodha in 2010 with a team of five people. With a progressive stand, Zerodha also runs a number of popular open online education and community initiatives to empower retail traders and investors. The company also launched Varsity, a learning module to educate first-time young investors. It also runs Trading Q&A, an active forum were traders and investors, can discuss stock ideas, also an interactive blog - ‘Z Connect’. With over 22 lakh active users, the platform sees over five million trades every day. “Our disruptive pricing models and in-house technology have made us the biggest stockbroker in India in terms of active retail clients,” the company said. The second youngest on the list is Divya Gokulnath, the better half of Byju Raveendran and Byju’s co-founder; she has a net worth of $3.05 billion (INR 22.3 thousand crore).

Chief Strategist at Hero MotoCorp quits

Rajat Bhargava, primary strategist at Hero MotoCorp has put in his papers and is on course with serving his notice period. Handpicked from McKinsey, Bhargava was instrumental in shaping up the company’s international roadmap. He was inducted into Chairman Pawan Munjal’s office, in July 2020 as chief of staff to strategise business, especially on mergers and acquisitions and in the recent past on a possible tie-up with American bike maker- Harley-Davidson after it exited India. Bhargava joined Hero MotoCorp in 2013 from McKinsey where he was the then senior partner with the firm. He has since been driving new business initiatives such as increasing interest in the Bengaluru-based the electric scooter company, Ather Energy, wherein Hero had invested for its future mobility needs. As a board member of Ather, Hero MotoCorp has continued as its growth partner since 2016. In previous roles, Bhargava was at the helm of affairs for Hero’s global businesses such as assembly and sales operations in emerging markets like Bangladesh and Columbia among others. Rajat had co-led McKinsey’s operations and industrial practices in India by leading its purchasing and supply management practice in the Asia Pacific. An alumnus of IIT (Delhi) and IIM (Ahmedabad), Bhargava’s stint with McKinsey also involved working with automotive OEMs, suppliers and other industrial companies improving the company’s bottom line, strategy and organisation transformation.

Samsung is No. 1 employer on Forbes 2020 list

Samsung, the Korean tech giant has been adjudged the best 2020 employer in the world as per the latest Forbes’ rankings. Samsung came strongly against almost all corporate majors such as Amazon, IBM and Microsoft to rank numero uno in 2020, taking a giant leap from its previous 76th rank in 2019 and 106th rank in 2018 on a list of 750 MNCs (multinational corporations). The ranking was based on a study on the employers’ Covid-19 response, gender equality and talent acquisition and other such parameters. More than 160,000 participants from 58 countries took the survey anonymously. Samsung put its employees’ health as a priority while managing its supply chain across the world as it kept up with its productions and sales. Other Korean companies on the list included LG in the 5th position. While Hyundai Motor, South Korea’s leading automaker, was positioned 80th on the list; Web portal operator, Naver, and cosmetics major, Amorepacific were placed at 37th and 42nd positions, respectively.