Eight Indian telco execs in global under-40 leaders' list

Eight executives from the Indian telecom industry were named in an under-40 young leaders’ report released by Global Telecoms Business, a London-based telecommunications magazine. The list comprises executives born on or after July, 1, 1971.

Srinivasa Addepalli, vice-president of strategy in Tata Communications, has been featured for the second year in this regard. Another Tata executive, Gauri Raizada, won a place in the list by rolling out a low-cost home-grown CRM (customer relationship management) software service, used by 80 million subscribers.

One of the youngest CEOs of Bharti Airtel, Anil Chitkara, who heads its $450-million global data business, also made it to the list. Along with Rene Meza, managing director of Airtel Kenya, the company also marked two entries into the list.

The chief information officer of Aircel, Pankaj Agarwal, who transformed the information technology back-end of the company by outsourcing, in a record seven months, also made an entry into the list. Udit Mehrotra, a director of Shyam Networks, featured in the report for multiple achievements.

He was the founder of Ubico Networks in 2007, the largest vendor of equipment for in-building and in-campus networks in the country. Yet another venture of his, CityComs Networks, is the country’s first independent intra-city carrier of carriers.

Others who made it to the list are Upendra Poranki, project owner of the Yuva project of Nokia Siemens Networks, and Mukesh Bavisi, managing director of Exponential-e.

The list also includes executives from international majors such as Orange, Alcatel-Lucent, MTS and Direct Networks.