Vikram Pawah to lead BMW’s India operations

Vikram Pawah takes over as the President of BMW Group India and will hold dual responsibility as he continues in his present role as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BMW Group Australia and New Zealand. Pawah’s mantle position as President will be with effect from August 2020. The sudden demise of Rudratej Singh, President and Chief Executive Officer in April 2020, created an extraordinary situation for BMW Group India. Since then, Arlindo Teixeira, Chief Financial Officer has been executing his role as acting President. Pawah joined the auto major in 2017 and has been holding his CEO position of BMW Group Australia and New Zealand since 2018. He successfully steered BMW into a position of strength in the luxury car segment. BMW India operates via a manufacturing plant in Chennai, a parts warehouse in Mumbai, a training centre in Gurugram NCR and dealer organisation across major metropolitan centres nationwide. The BMW Group has focused on the premium segment of the Indian automobile market by appropriately positioning its BMW, MINI and Motorrad models.

Ipsita Dasgupta helms Apple Inc’s streaming services

Ipsita Dasgupta will lead Apple’s streaming business as its India Country Manager. She replaces Khushboo Ponwar who had moved on as head of business development for Apple in India, the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa. The tech giant-manufacturer of consumer electronics and software products has entrusted Ipsita to manage its streaming services pipeline that includes Apple TV+, Apple Music and the App Store. Her timely appointment syncs in with the company’s current goals in building up its streaming and app businesses for driving revenue with localised content in India. A Harvard Alumni, Ipsita was the President of Strategy and New Ventures at Hotstar, prior to joining Apple.

Cyrus Poonawalla joins global billionaire list, ranked 86th

Cyrus S. Poonawalla, Chairman of the Poonawalla Group, that has built on its flagship biotech company, Serum Institute of India (SSI), emerged as one of the top and the 5th fastest growing Indian billionaires. The Hurun Research report states that Poonawalla ascended by 57 places and is positioned as the 86th richest person in the world as of May 31, 2020. His rise in wealth quotient is backed by a 25% increase in his net worth during the past 4 months post the pandemic. In fact, the vaccine Czar’s fortunes grew the fastest amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, with his wealth valued at Rs.1,13,300 crore. Pune-based SSI’s net worth appreciated primarily due to its vaccine distribution channels and the manufacturing potential of its biotech business. Thus, entrepreneur Poonawalla joins the top-100 billionaire list that includes Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). Both have recently gained focus as business doyens who have maximised their wealth during the COVID outbreak and despite it. The company’s most recent deal with AstraZeneca for manufacturing one billion doses of coronavirus vaccine that is being developed by Oxford University is yet another trump card in its vaccine pipeline. One of the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world, SSI’s proposed Covid-19 vaccine puts India on the global roadmap for playing an impactful role in combating the virus. Cyrus Poonawalla stands at the 165th position with a personal wealth at US $10.9 billion in the Forbes richest billionaire list.

Nita Ambani, amongst top global philanthropists

Nita Ambani, Chairperson and founder of Reliance Foundation becomes the only Indian to feature amongst top global philanthropist of 2020 in the latest issue of US-based magazine, Town & Country. Her listing in the magazine applauds her efforts in steering the Reliance Foundation in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic as she shares space with other globally reputed celebrities – the likes of Donatella Versace, Oprah Winfrey, Tim Cook, Michael Bloomberg, Leonardo Di Caprio, Laurene Powell Jobs, the Lauder Family and other globally acclaimed individuals. Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) initiated a meals distribution drive via its philanthropic arm, The Reliance Foundation. The initiative has enabled millions of meals and masks to be distributed to frontline Covid warriors and to the underprivileged; besides also donating $72 million to an emergency fund. The Foundation also set up India’s first dedicated Covid hospital in Mumbai. The 100-bed hospital facility was set up within two weeks to facilitate the growing number of Covid-19 cases in the city. The hospital that was functional since March end gradually expanded to accommodate an increase in the number of beds to 220 by end-April. The foundation also launched the "Anna Seva", an exclusive food service programme with a humanitarian outlook that managed to feed 50 million hungry individuals since its inception, following the pandemic outbreak and the subsequent lockdown.

UN lauds Kerala Health Minister

The United Nations has honoured Kerala Health Minister, K K Shailaja, for her efforts in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and rightfully gained pride of place amongst select few world leaders, invited to speak on the occasion of the United Nations Public Service Day. Kerala, despite being the first state to have recorded India’s first three coronavirus cases, has been extremely successful in flattening the infection curve. The 63-yearold health minister formulated a strategy that covered quarantine, aggressive testing standards and promptness in contact tracing protocols-a model that has been lauded globally. Shailaja related to her experiences of tackling Nipah virus in the past, the subsequent floods of 2018 and 2019 that came handy in combating the Coronavirus threat. She said that immediate to the Wuhan outbreak, Kerala got into track and followed every standard operating protocol and international norms prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and hence, were able to keep the contact spread rate below 12.5% and the mortality rate to 0.6 %. She also noted that the decentralised public health delivery systems in the state of Kerala activated an entire surveillance network following WHO’s alert on a respiratory virus with ‘pandemic potential’. Kerala, minimising its pandemic counts is proof enough to show how proactive measures and a dedicated health minister can help counter a medical outbreak.

Anand Mahindra invests $1million in startup

Anand Mahindra, Mahindra Group Chairman has invested $1million in a Gurugram-based tech startup Hapramp. The investment ends business magnet Mahindra’s two-year-long pursuit in seeking an Indian start-up that functions in the social media domain. The three-year old startup Hapramp, works on technologies related to social networking and blockchain. Jaspreet Bindra, former Chief Digital Officer of Mahindra Group was given the task of scouting for a suitable startup on behalf of Anand Mahindra. Bindra is an Executive Advisor and Mentor to the start-up’s founding team while Anand Mahindra onboards as a lead investor. The Hapramp team is building a Web 3.0 social network based on emerging digital technologies and a business model that protects personal data, rewards content creators, and is indigenous to India. Founded in 2018 by five students, Pratyush Singh, Mofid Ansari, Ankit Kumar, Shubhendra Vikram and Rajat Dangi of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Vadodara, it runs its flagship social networking solution GoSocial. Hapramp also operates 1Ramp.io, a social media platform powered by Steem Blockchain, and Asteria Protocol that enables platforms to treat public data privately and securely.

D-Mart’s Damani bids for India Cements

Retail tycoon, Radhakishan Damani, the owner of Avenue Supermarts Ltd is speculated to take over Chennai based India Cements Ltd. D-Mart’s Damani has been pursuing his intent to gain controlling stakes in the cement company since the past three years. However, in recent moves, he is alleged to have approached N. Srinivasan, the prime shareholder of the cement company to explore the possibility of a takeover. Incidentally, Damani and his family have been stacking up on shares of India Cements in the past months which has quadrupled their holdings to about 20% as per March 31, 2020 exchange filings. Industry insiders said that Srinivasan controls 29% stake in India Cements and has been scouting around for other investors to avoid any possible situation of a hostile takeover bid. While Damani has promised a friendly management transition and is not seeking a hostile takeover, industry watchers state that no concrete decision has been arrived at on the proceedings between Damani and Srinivasan. Damani, enhanced his wealth adding more than $5 billion since 2019 which stands at a current value of $16.4 billion. He is one amongst three Indian billionaires whose wealth rose exponentially between March 2019 and March 2020. And, if a deal is struck, Damani is poised to get even richer as the share price of India Cements has shot up to more than 92%, with a market capitalisation of $555 billion. This also means that 74-year-old Damani would own eight listed stocksincluding D-Mart, Simplex Infrastructure and Delta Corporation.

Adar Poonawalla bets on AstraZeneca deal for Covid vaccine

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SSI) has put his bet against all odds on an untested vaccine that has the potential to control the spread of the Covid-19 strain. The 39-year old scion of the Cyrus Poonawalla Group and Chairman of SSI has partnered with Britain’s AstraZeneca in bringing this vaccine to India. AstraZeneca’s terms with SSI, as one of the world's largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume, is to supply one billion doses to low and middle-income countries. The promising single-dose vaccine candidate, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is being developed by the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford and is expected to gain approvals in September, if all goes as planned-post human clinical trials. But optimistic Adar Poonawalla has decided to risk manufacturing millions of doses of this vaccine candidate ahead of approvals. Given the urgency for a Covid-19 vaccine, he is confident that when approvals come in, he would be ready with sufficient inventory for immediate distribution. And, even if approvals are denied, he is willing to take the financial blow in favour of the promising vaccine candidate. In other development, SSI has become the first manufacturer from a developing country to provide 10 million doses annually of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), for preventing severe pneumonia in lower-income countries for the next 10 years, under a new supply agreement with the UNICEF.

Mukesh Ambani to buy stakes in Biyani’s Future Group

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is on a shopping spree once again and this time it is speculated that he is close to acquiring stakes in some units of Kishore Biyani’s Future Group. If the deal goes through, the move is seen as a step forward for Reliance Industries’ ambitious e-commerce forays in the domestic market. While no final decisions have been arrived yet, a successful deal between Ambani and Biyani might pit Ambani’s $14 billion e-commerce venture Jio Platforms against Amazon which already owns around 3.6% in Future Retail. Despite attracting interest from other investors and Amazon, Reliance’s proposal to buy into Future Retail Ltd. could sway the outcome in its favour. An investment by RIL into Future Group companies could be the much-needed shot in the arm for Biyani and family who have been negotiating with creditors to sell shares of its group companies, to pare its debts. Standard & Poor's and Fitch have lately downgraded credit ratings of Future Retail following the default and solicitation of pledged shares by lenders. The promoters and promoter group held 40.31% stake in Future Retail as on March 31, 2020. Future Group has been exploring opportunities with PremjiInvest, the family investment arm of Wipro Chairman, Azim Premji and private equity firm Samara Capital to offload its stake in Future Retail. PremjiInvest owns about 6% stake in Future Retail. Earlier, the Future Group had also entered into a partnership with e-commerce giant, Amazon, for an expansion to leverage each other's networks.

Pepsico’s Ram Krishnan steps in as Chief Commercial Officer

Pepsico’s Ram Krishnan has taken over as the Global Chief Commercial Officer as he relinquishes his former role as CEO of Asia Pacific, New Zealand, Austalia and China. The global food and beverage company has appointed Wern-Yuen Tan as CEO to replace Krishnan. Ram will return back to his fulltime role as Global Chief Commercial Officer, which positions him for PepsiCo’s crucial ‘Winning with Purpose strategy’. His leadership will enable the company’s global consumer and customer sales agenda, develop, and scale new capabilities and build business models based on data and technology for future growth.

Bhavesh Lakhani quits SBI’s MF

Bhavesh Lakhani has joined IndusInd Bank as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), relinquishing his role at SBI’s Mutual Fund. Lakhani, a business, and technology leader brings in 21 years of global leadership experience in banking and financial services. He has previously rendered his services with DSP Mutual Funds as CTO, HSBC as SVP, Technology & Services and Wachovia Bank as VP-IT Delivery amongst others. Managing a history of key project transformations, he has been at the forefront of leveraging emerging and existing technology and directing strategies for cutting edge product developments, improving operations, and impacting company bottom lines.

Google’s top deck rejig elevates Raghavan

Google has elevated Prabhakar Raghavan as the Head of Search and Assistant, as the company rejigs its top management deck. The move packs in all of Google’s search engine, advertising, and commerce business under one roof and the same person. Raghavan takes over from Ben Gomes who is moving on to a new role within Google and will be reporting to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. The re-organisation will now place Jerry Dischler as head of Google's advertising business. Jerry is currently leading the company’s product and engineering team for Google's ads business and will be reporting to Raghavan as per the new company reorganisation. Raghavan has been with Google since 2012 and was appointed as the head of the its advertising and commerce business in 2018. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Google Apps and Google Cloud. Raghavan also led search teams exercising multiple roles at IBM and Yahoo prior to his journey with Google. Meanwhile, Ben Gomes is moving on to a new role and will lead Apple’s learning initiatives in education and arts and culture, which is expected to tie them all closely to Google's flagship products and core user experiences.

Uber elevates Parameswaran as Regional Manager, APAC

Uber has appointed its India business head Pradeep Parameswaran as Regional Manager for its Asia-Pacific operations. Parameswaran, a former McKinsey executive will be responsible for improving Uber’s presence in its existing service zones across nine nations in the Asia-Pacific region. Pradeep will be overseeing Uber’s ride business in the Asia-Pacific region. Parameswaran joined as President of Uber’s India and South Asia operations two years back when he replaced Amit Jain, who became the head of the company’s Asia-Pacific region. Pradeep has helped Uber grow and drive through some challenging decisions in the world’s second largest internet market. Uber handled 14 million rides per week in India in 2019.