Digital driver

Avaya, a global provider of business communications services, has appointed Vishal Agrawal as managing director, India and SAARC. Agrawal will focus on aligning Avaya more closely with India's digital transformation initiative. With more than 10 years' experience at Avaya, Agrawal has played a critical role in the company's development in India, scaling the India services operations, setting up the operations leadership team, and driving revenue growth. Agrawal has recently launched Avaya's cloud strategy in India to help accelerate the country's digital transformation and Make in India initiatives.

Marketing decor

Urban Ladder has appointed Sanjay Gupta as chief marketing officer. With 12 years of experience in branding and marketing, Gupta has been instrumental in building brands in the consumer goods industry. He will lead the company's marketing strategies, including branding, creative and content and digital and product marketing. Gupta is an alumnus of Shri Ram College of Commerce and a postgraduate in business administration from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.

App technology

Lookup, a messaging app that connects shoppers with local businesses, has appointed Narayan Babu as chief technology officer. Narayan Babu was one of the six founders and chief executive of Dexetra, a venture funded by Sequoia and Qualcomm that made popular mobile personal assistant apps Iris and Friday. In November 2014, Alibaba and Softbank funded US-based Quixey, which owns and operates a search engine for mobile apps and acquired Dexetra. Narayan served as director of engineering for Quixey.

Cash and carry

Arvind Mediratta has joined METRO Cash & Carry India as managing director. Prior to this, Mediratta was working as corporate vice-president (merchandising) with Walmart USA. He had joined Walmart in April 2007 and played a key role in setting up its Indian cash-and-carry business and organisation. Mediratta also also was chief marketing officer for South Asia at Yum! Foods and vice-president, marketing and product development, for Whirlpool India earlier. He takes over from Rajeev Bakshi, who had joined METRO Cash & Carry India as managing director in June 2010.