Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari resigns, Irina Ghose becomes MD

Microsoft India said that its India president Anant Maheshwari (pictured) has stepped down from his position to pursue other interest. Maheshwari’s announcement comes amid rejig within the senior leadership in India.

“We can confirm that Anant has decided to leave Microsoft to pursue a role outside the company. We would like to thank Anant for his many contributions to our business and culture in India and wish him every success in his future endeavors,” said a statement from Microsoft spokesperson.

Last week, Microsoft had made changes to its senior leadership. As a part of the rejig, Irina Ghose was elevated to the role of MD, Microsoft India. She was earlier COO. Sashi Sreedharan, who was earlier the MD has moved to a role in Asia.

As part of the leadership changes, Navtej Sigh Bal has been elevated to the COOs role. He was earlier heading the government, public sector and education business for Microsoft in India.

Venkat Krishnan, who was heading partnerships, has been promoted to head the government business unit.

According to media reports, Puneet Chandok who was heading AWS India, and resigned from his role, is headed to Microsoft.

Maheshwari was responsible for the company’s overall presence and business in the country. He is also the chairman of Nasscom. Prior to Microsoft, Maheshwari worked with Honeywell India as President, and also worked with McKinsey & Company.

Microsoft has been a big cloud services provider in India and competes with AWS, Google and Oracle. Microsoft has also invested in setting up three data centers in India. A fourth DC is also expected to be set up in Hyderabad.

India Inc. and the government sector have been increasing their spends on cloud. According to a Gartner report, end-user spending on public cloud in India is forecast to grow 27% in 2023.