Airtel appoints Netmagic's Rajesh Tapadia as CEO of cloud arm Nxtra Data

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest integrated telecommunications services provider, on Monday said that it has appointed Rajesh Tapadia as Chief Executive Officer of its data centre and cloud business, Nxtra Data.

Airtel is the largest player in India’s B2B connectivity space with over 3,000 global/large enterprises and over 500,000 SMEs as customers. Nxtra Data, a subsidiary of Airtel, is a leading player in the data centre and cloud services segment. It offers data centre services, managed services and cloud services to top Indian and global enterprises, start-ups, SMEs and governments. It operates 10 large data centres along with 120 plus edge data centres located strategically across India and is building four new large data centres. 

                 

The data centre and cloud services market in India is witnessing tremendous growth driven by the rapid digitization of enterprises and uptake of digital services such as content and social media by customers. The segment is slated to grow to a $4 billion plus market by 2022 and Airtel with its integrated services portfolio and deep, secure networks is uniquely positioned to leverage this opportunity.

Commenting on the appointment Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia), said: “Digital India is transforming the economy and opening up exciting new opportunities to serve customers. The data centre and cloud segment is an important pillar in our strategy to address enterprise customers’ evolving needs. We have already undertaken some very ambitious projects in this area and our ambition is to leverage our strengths to gain disproportionate share in this space. I am confident that Rajesh with his stellar track record will add immense value to our plans. I welcome him to Airtel and wish him all the very best.”

Tapadia brings with him a experience of over 24 years with organisations like Netmagic Solutions, Trimax, Global Cloud Xchange, Genpact and Reliance Infocomm. In his most recent role in Netmagic Solutions as Chief Service Officer and Executive Director on the Board, Tapadia managed data centre operations across multiple cities, running mission critical infrastructure for global customers. He has driven key initiatives on cyber security, multi-cloud and global managed services and also led the setting up of many prominent data centres in the country.