New CxO Appointments in April 2021 [Updated]

Here is an updated list of all important appointments in IT organizations in India.

Here is an updated list of all important appointments in IT organizations in India.

1. API platform Decentro appoints Gautam Mahesh and Venkat Potluri

Decentro, a banking API integration platform for businesses, onboarded Gautam Mahesh, Ex-Product Lead from InCred, as the Director of Product in April. Gautam has a strong product-focused background and has worked with Flexiloans, InCred, Klub, NBFCs and has earlier co-founded The Product Tree, a non-profit community for aspiring & veteran Product managers. Gautam will help in the development and design of the product roadmap ahead and help embed finance and lending solutions into B2B and B2C ventures.

Decentro also added Venkat Potluri to their growing advisory council He will help in introducing large-scale and enterprise organizations that are keen to embed API Banking workflows. In line with the long-term thesis that “Every company will be a fintech,” Venkat will add value from his previous experiences at ZestMoney, Flipkart & Tesco, and as co-founder of Sellerworx (which was later acquired by Capillary).

2. ColorTokens announces the appointment of Co-Founder Rajesh Khazanchi as the Chief Executive Officer.

ColorTokens Inc., a Zero Trust cybersecurity platform company has promoted Co-Founder Rajesh Khazanchi to the Chief Executive Officer. Nitin Mehta, who is a co-founder and the previous CEO, will remain with the company as the Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Before ColorTokens, Rajesh held multiple leadership roles with leading enterprise companies. Some prominent names include VMware, HP Software, BMC Software, and Oracle Corporation. He holds six patents in cybersecurity, application management, and cloud innovations.

3. GlobalLogic Appoints Ajit Mahale as Vice President - Engineering for Western India region

GlobalLogic Inc has announced the appointment of Ajit Mahale as Vice President - Engineering, for the Nagpur region. In his new role, Ajit will take charge of driving profitable growth from strategy to execution. He will also oversee delivery, operations, and engineering. Overall, he will be responsible for the western markets – Nagpur, Pune, and Mumbai. His work will also align with GlobalLogic’s investments for growth, consistency, and efficiency and support the company's leadership.

Before joining GlobalLogic, Ajit was associated with Capgemini as the Chief Delivery Executive of their Banking & Capital Markets Business. Ajit has worked with large global IT organizations for over two decades where he has driven business transformation engagements encompassing consulting, development, delivery, and operations. He has also handled complex programs that have leveraged new product development, fintech platforms, data analytics, open banking & API integration.

4. AXA XL appoints Sundeep Khera Head of Marine, UK and Lloyd's market

AXA XL has appointed Sundeep Khera as Head of Marine, UK & Lloyd’s market, effective 1 July 2021, and Global Head of Hull, effective immediately. Khera is currently Head of Marine, Asia-Pacific, at AXA XL, based in Singapore. In his new roles, he will be responsible for driving strategic, profitable expansion across the UK & Lloyd’s region and the division’s Global Hull books of business. He will relocate to London, UK, to take up his new roles. He will step down from his role as Head of Marine, Asia-Pacific in July. Thereby, he will ensure the smooth handover and transition of his current responsibilities.

Mr Khera has been with AXA for more than eight years, joining as a Regional Manager, Asia - Marine & Transport Risk Consulting at AXA Corporate Solutions in 2013, before later being appointed Head of Marine in 2015. Following the completion of AXA’s acquisition of XL Catlin in 2019, Mr Khera served as the Head of Marine, Asia-Pacific.

5. Rajiv Srivastava joins Reddington India Limited as Joint Managing Director and Additional Director on the Board

Reddington India Limited has announced the appointment of Rajiv Srivastava as Joint Managing Director of the Redington Group. He will also serve as an Additional Director on the Board, effective April 02, 2021. The company also announced the elevation of Managing Director, Raj Shankar, as Vice-Chairman and Managing Director with immediate effect.

Until recently, Rajiv was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), India’s premier energy exchange. During his stint at IEX, he transformed it into a diversified business enterprise that significantly improved shareholder value. Before IEX, Rajiv spent 19 years at HP, where his final stint included the roles of Managing Director - HP India for six years, and thereafter, as Chief Operating Officer, Asia Pacific & Japan, based in Singapore. As a member of the worldwide strategy board, he has played an active role in shaping HP’s global operating model.

6. ImaginXP brings on board Dr Neeraj Sharma as Head of University Partnerships

EdTech ImaginXP has roped in the accomplished industry veteran Dr Neeraj Sharma. He will lead the company's university partnerships. He will also provide a strategic direction wrt NEP 2020. This appointment comes in addition to the recent acquisition by the company of Noesis Learning. The acquisition also brought Ajay Kumar – CTO, Talent Edge and Pallavi Singla from the team into the company.

7. Tanla Platforms Appoints Aravind Viswanathan as CFO

Tanla Platforms has announced the appointment of Aravind Viswanathan as Chief Financial Officer effective 1st June 2021. Aravind joins the company from Wipro Limited, where he served as Senior Vice President and CFO – iDEAS Global Business Line. Current CFO GK Srinivas will be retiring in August 2021 after 13 years at Tanla. Thus, enabling a smooth transition to the new CFO.

8. Syndrome Technologies appoints Sam Simon as Chief Executive Officer

Sam Simon joins Syndrome Technologies as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Effective January 1, 2021, Sam has been spearheading Syndrome Technologies to oversee the transformation and diversification plan for the business. He would focus on developing Syndrome’s new strategy on building software and services led GTM whilst ensuring alignment on short and long-term growth strategy for the Infrastructure business.

In his current role, he would also oversee and provide strategic direction to the sales team covering different verticals with an extended portfolio of Data Centre, Security, Networking, Managed Services and Professional services business.

9. DoubleVerify appoints Doug Campbell As New Chief Strategy Officer

IT Major DoubleVerify announced the appointment of Doug Campbell as Chief Strategy Officer. In his role, Campbell will be responsible for global strategy and corporate development. He will report to Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify.

Previously, Campbell was Chief Operating Officer at eXelate where he led the sale of the company to Nielsen. He went on to serve as Nielsen’s Senior Vice President of Global Strategy and Corporate Development, where he oversaw strategic acquisitions in digital media and consumer measurement. Before eXelate, he was an entrepreneur and held various leadership positions at local digital media pioneer, WorldNow. Campbell began his career as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch.

10. Pega India appoints Smriti Mathur as Senior Director and Head of People

Pega India has announced a new addition to its India leadership team today with the appointment of Smriti Mathur as senior director and head of people organization in India. Ms Mathur’s role will encompass building a diverse and inclusive work culture while driving a strong people strategy that leverages technology to meet business agility and outcomes.

With an aggressive hiring plan for India this year, Pega is further actively looking to hire leading talent to fuel the company’s innovation and growth. Ms Mathur will provide strategic direction towards attracting, developing, and retaining the best talent in the industry to help build and deliver digital innovation to the world’s leading organizations.

11. LTI Appoints Anil Rander as new Chief Financial Officer

Larsen & Turbo Infotech has appointed Anil Rander as its Chief Financial Officer. Anil is a seasoned finance leader with more than 27 years of multifaceted experience in driving business performance and growth. His expertise ranges across business and financial strategy formulation, fiscal management, corporate accounting, investor relations, pricing, risk management, internal audit and financial controls.

Anil joins LTI from Tech Mahindra where he was the Senior Vice President for Finance and Legal functions and Global Head of Finance for BPS. Before this role, Anil worked with Hutchison Max Telecom Ltd where he looked after management accounting. His other stints have been with Alpic Finance and also A.F. Ferguson & Co.

12. FSS appoints Sanjoy Bose as the Chief Revenue Officer - South Asia

FinTech FSS has announced the appointment of Sanjoy Bose as the Chief Revenue Officer – South Asia. Sanjoy will be responsible for growing FSS Business in the region, taking a customer-centric approach and driving high-quality engagements. Sanjoy brings in three decades of deep global business development expertise. He will be focusing on expanding and further strengthening the brand in the region with new logo acquisitions and revenue growth for the multi-faceted retail payments.

13. Hike brings on board Manav Arya as Head of Rush

Social media HIke has announced the hiring of Manav Arya as Head of Rush. Manav joins Hike with over 13 years of experience specialising in mobile gaming, He has worked with brands like Junglee Games, PayTM First Games, Octro Inc, and The Walt Disney Company. Manav’s appointment is part of Hike’s plan to bolster teams across the board as it doubles down on its bets with Vibe & Rush. Further, Manav will report directly to Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder & CEO, Hike.

14. ServiceNow Appoints Sumeet Mathur as Country Head of India Development Centre

ServiceNow has announced the appointment of Sumeet Mathur as its new VP, Engineering and Country Head of India Development Centre (IDC). Sumeet will help lead IDC’s next stage of innovation and growth in his new role, thought leadership and diversity. He brings over 25 years of experience as a technology and business leader. Sumeet most recently served as Global Head of Engineering for Identity Security at Broadcom Inc. In this role, he held responsibility for a diverse, high-profile product portfolio and also led teams spread across multiple locations around the world. Sumeet takes over in the role following Rao Surapaneni’s return to the US.

15. Commvault Appoints Praveen Sahai as VP, Channels, Alliances & Service Provider, APJ

Mr Praveen Sahai has been appointed as Vice President, Channel, and Alliances. Mr Sahai joins the company with decades of experience. He has a proven track record as a business leader and channel partner management expert in IT across varied consumption models, including Cloud. Sahai brings with him a deep knowledge of SaaS, cloud computing and data management landscape in APJ with stints at Citrix, Sun Microsystems and most recently, at Dell Technologies where he successfully spearheaded its channel cloud business, ISV sales, strategic partner & acquisition sales across APJ.

16. U GRO Capital appoints Rishabh Garg as Chief Technology Officer

U GRO Capital has announced the appointment of Rishabh Garg as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Rishabh will lead and drive all technology-based projects, strategy, and innovations for U GRO Capital in this role. Rishabh is an IIM Lucknow and IIT Roorkee alumnus. Before joining U GRO Capital, he served as Co-Founder and CTO of an insurtech startup Gramcover.

At GramCover, he built a technology-enabled rural insurance business at scale. In his career spanning over 17 years, Rishabh has built extensive experience in all facets of software development life cycle and building scalable products across Insurance, Lending, Payments, Ecommerce and Telecom domains. Rishabh has also worked with organisations like Biz2Credit Inc, Agnity Technologies, Sap Labs India and Infosys Technologies.

17. ColorTokens Hires Vats Srivatsanas its President and Chief Operating Officer

Cybersecurity company ColorTokens has appointed Vats Srivatsan as its President and Chief Operating Officer. Srivatsan brings in three decades of experience, including executive roles at leading companies, including Palo Alto Networks and Google. In his most recent position as the CSO at Palo Alto Networks, Srivatsan led mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and corporate strategy. He also shaped the company’s transformation to the cloud through 10 acquisitions over the past 2 1/2 years.

Previously, Srivatsan played a pivotal role in scaling Google Cloud from the initial business case to a multibillion-dollar business. As head of global business operations, he set up Google Cloud’s core commercial engine, pricing, contracting, and global footprint expansion, and he also founded and led its Advanced Solutions Lab for artificial intelligence and machine learning. Before that, Srivatsan was the corporate vice president at Motorola Mobility, a partner at McKinsey & Co. He has also held key positions at Dell and Intel. He has a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

18. Trend Micro promotes Vijendra Katiyar as Country Manager, India & SAARC

Trend Micro has appointed Vijendra Katiyar as the Country Manager for India & SAARC. Katiyar will focus on steering customer and business growth and increasing the company’s overall market share across India. His remit will also include strengthening engagement with channel partners to help deepen customer engagement and success.

Vijendra has had a long and successful journey with Trend Micro. In his nine-year stint at the company that began in 2012, he held different positions, from Regional Account Manager to National Sales Manager - India & SAARC. He has also led the mandate of growing the cloud security business for Trend Micro. Before his new role, he served as the Director - Enterprise Business, India & SAARC. He has driven strategic business decisions with effective tools and processes, translating to 100% revenue growth in the last four years.

19. FinTech brokerage firm Angel Broking appoints Narayan Gangadhar as its new CEO

FinTech brokerage firm Angel Broking has appointed Silicon Valley veteran Narayan Gangadhar as its new CEO. Narayan has more than two decades of global experience leading technology businesses at top-tier Silicon Valley companies. He has worked with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Uber. He brings a lot of operating experience leading highly disruptive businesses by driving innovation in product, technology, capability building and processes automation.

20. Experian India Appoints Neeraj Dhawan as Managing Director

Experian India has strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of industry veteran, Neeraj Dhawan as Managing Director. In a career spanning over 27 years with multinationals and large corporations, Neeraj possesses senior leadership experience in technology, designing and executing business strategies, risk management and debt management to name a few. He was most recently Chief Credit Officer at CSB Bank, focusing on Retail, SME, and analytics.

His past stints include working with renowned companies such as GE Capital, ABN Amro Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Yes Bank among others. He is also highly experienced in taking on transformation projects, leading teams to create next-generation end-to-end digitalised processes in credit underwriting.

21. Recko on-boards Shankar Manian as Senior Director of Engineering

FinTech Recko has announced the appointment of Shankar Manian as a Senior Director of Engineering. Shankar comes with over 20 years of experience across companies like Flipkart, Microsoft, and Linkedin. At Recko, Shankar will be responsible for driving and managing the entire engineering function.

In his previous role, Shankar was Director of Engineering at Flipkart where he led the Accounting Tech team for the last 3 years and was working on designing, developing, and managing scalable and distributed platforms. His team was responsible for managing the lifecycle of all financial transactions across Flipkart group of companies and large-scale financial data reconciliation.

22. Equinix appoints Cyrus Adaggra as Vice President, Corporate Development for Asia-Pacific

Digital Infrastructure firm Equinix has announced the appointment of Cyrus Adaggra as Vice President of Corporate Development, Equinix Asia-Pacific, with immediate effect. Based in Sydney, Cyrus will lead the Asia-Pacific Corporate Development team in driving the company's growth strategy to expand Equinix's footprint in existing and new markets across the region.

Cyrus holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Macquarie University, Australia. He also holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management. With more than 20 years of experience in M&As, financial strategy and corporate development, Cyrus was most recently with Telstra Ltd, where over the last 10 years he led several M&A projects as well as large and complex cross-enterprise strategic initiatives. Before that, he worked in the M&A practice of Ernst & Young. He also acted as transaction advisor to large multinational corporations, private equity firms and private businesses.

23. ICT Industry Veteran Manoj Chugh joins as Advisor to the Board at Cybersecurity firm Vehere

Cybersecurity startup, Vehere has announced that its Board of Directors has named veteran IT expert and ICT industry leader, Manoj Chugh, as an Advisor to the Board. Manoj has served in leadership positions across some of the biggest tech companies and brings the best of management, leadership, operational and technical expertise to Vehere. In his prior roles, he was the Regional President, APJ for EMC's Global Accounts Program. He also served as the President of EMC’s Business in the SAARC Region and as the President of Cisco System’s business in this Region, amongst others.

Sign Up for our Newsletter>