Bharti Airtel (Airtel), on Monday said that Ajay Chitkara, Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Business, has decided to move on from Airtel and will continue with the company until the third week of August 2023.
Consequently, Airtel Business will operate as three business and channel segments — Global business, led by Vani Venkatesh, Domestic business, led by Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, and Nxtra Data Centers, led by Ashish Arora, the company in a stock filing.
Commenting on the changes, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, Airtel said, “Airtel Business is a jewel in our overall portfolio and presents an exciting growth opportunity going forward. I am looking forward to working closely with Vani, Ganesh and Ashish to help scale this business.”
He also acknowledged Chitkara’s contributions and said in his 23 long years with Airtel Chitkara has delivered significant results. “He has also built Airtel Business into a strong force. I wish him the very best in his future endeavours,” Vittal added.
Chitkara has been a key official to bring in businesses at Airtel, especially during the pandemic.
Recently, in his leadership, the company announced its partnership with Secure Meters for deploying Narrow Band (NB-IoT) services to power 1.3 million homes in Bihar through a smart meter solution. This deployment will be India’s first NB-IoT solution on a narrow band with a fall-back option that will work on 2G and 4G and ensure real-time connectivity and uninterrupted transfer of critical data.
NB-IoT is a low-power, wide area, radio network technology developed by 3GPP which enables a wide variety of IoT devices and services including smart meters. “IoT is one of the fastest-growing business segments for Airtel Business. This venture into NB-IoT strengthens our credentials as the largest cellular IoT player in the country and places us firmly as a partner of choice for Discoms looking to invest in smart metres,” Chitkara had said.
Published on June 26, 2023
