Airtel splits India biz into 8 hubs

Rejig aimed at building a more 'connected organisation'

As part of its ongoing organisational rejig, Bharti Airtel on Thursday said the India business would split into eight hubs, to be controlled by Ajai Puri, who would take over as the director (market operations) for India, a newly created post.

K Srinivas, currently the president for Airtel’s consumer business in India, will take over as the director (special projects) for the India operations from March 4. Srinivas, who will take care of potential investment opportunities and develop business across verticals, will report to chairman Sunil Mittal.

Puri, the operations director (north and east) at present, will report to Gopal Vittal, the joint managing director and CEO-designate.

All the operations heads of the eight hubs will report to Puri, according to a company statement.

Bharti Airtel has so far been operating the India business with three regional hubs.

The development comes just after a week of Bharti’s announcement of appointing Manoj Kohli the new managing director, while promoter Sunil Mittal becomes the executive chairman of the country’s largest telecom service provider by subscribers.

Vittal, who rejoined the company recently as the group director (special projects) in April, had been appointed the CEO for India operations last month, after Sanjay Kapoor, its current CEO (India and south Asia) quit. Vittal will continue to oversee the Indian operations.

“The new organisational design, effective from March 1, is aimed at furthering the company’s initiatives to build a more connected organisation, closer to the marketplace and able to deliver a world-class experience to customers,” Airtel said.

Under the new structure, the circle CEOs, who currently report to a hub CEO, will continue to operate with the same level of independence.

Raghunath Mandava, currently operations director (west and distribution) will become the director (customer experience).

Najib Khan, currently the CMO (Airtel business), will be CEO (homes and office). Najib will now look after the telemedia business, the SMB vertical, LTE and Wi-fi.