Appointments - Current Affairs for October, 2015

Senior IRS officer Najib Shah was appointed on 28th October as the chairman of the apex body on indirect taxes, Central Board of Excise and Customers. He will remain in office till he superannuates in 2017. He is a ’79 batch IRS officer and was previously the CBEC Member.

In a top level bureaucratic reshuffle by the government, senior IAS officer Aruna Sunderajan was appointed as Secretary in the Ministry of Steel as part of a top bureaucratic reshuffle. Currently Administrator, Universal Service Obligation Fund under Department of Telecommunications. she has been appointed to replace Rakesh Singh, who superannuated on September 30, an order issued by DoPT said. She is among five new Secretaries appointed by the government.

BlackBerry said appointed Narendra Nayak as the MD of its India operations replacing Sunil Lalvani, who had quit the organisation in June, 2015. Nayak will drive BlackBerry software and services business through channels in India and also be responsible for growing ecosystem of indirect channels in the country. He earlier worked for venture-funded software company Linguanext Technologies, where he was responsible for growing the business in India and across South East Asia, Middle East and Africa. He has also worked with IBM, Motorola, Digital Equipment India and CSC.

Videocon d2h Limited, India’s most rapidly growing DTH service and most valued company on NASDAQ by market cap, announced the appointment of Gitanjali Kirloskar as Independent Director, subject to approval by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. She was also a director in Kirloskar Systems Limited and charged several trade associations such as FICCI. She set up the first NPO between India and Japan called the India Japan Initiative.

Arun Jayanthi has been elevated as international BPO head of 11 billion Euro global French IT company Capgemini. She will manage the business worth USD 700 million or 635 million euro in revenue. This has a massive global footprint in areas such as accounting, finance, procurement and supply chain. Former HR head of iGate Srinivas Kandula has replaced Jayanthi as India CEO. Capgemini group chairman and CEO Paul Hermelin announced their appointments. New structure follows acquisition of iGate by Capgemini for USD 4 billion. Kandula’s appointment marks a rare time when an HR head has been appointed as CEO.

Dr. Basu has taken over as Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary DAE on 23rd October 2015. Dr. R. K. Sinha remitted his office following superannuation after 42 years of service. Dr. Basu was previously the Director of BARC and has also worked as Project Director of Nuclear Submarine Programme and later as the Chief Executive of the Nuclear Recycle Board in the same institute.

Ministry of Defence on 21st October 2015 divided a single area into Maharashtra and Gujarat Naval Areas and created two separate HQs to be headed by Flag Officer Maharashtra Area and Flag Officer Gujarat Naval Area. The charge of the Flag Officer for Maharashtra Area was taken by Rear Admiral Satish Namdeo Ghormade and Rear Admiral Muralidhar Sadashiv Pawar will now serve as Flag Officer of the Gujarat Naval Area.

e-Commerce major Flipkart has announced the appointment of S. Subandh as the Chief Marketing Officer on 21st October 2015. Subandh will be handling the Flipkart brand through deeper insight into customer behaviour. He has over 17 years experience in the consumer goods industry and has spent 15 years with Hindustan Unilever. He has also worked with Marico.

Ex- Water Resources Secretary Alok Rawat has been appointed as the first male member of the NCW, filling the 4th seat in the 5 member body. He is a 1977 batch Sikkim cadre IAS officer. He has previously served at the following posts:

- Director/joint secretary in ministry of defence and ministry of road transport and highways;
- Secretary (UPSC);
- Secretary (Coordination and Public Grievances) in the cabinet secretariat Secretary in ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation.

E-commerce major Snapdeal on 20th October 2015 announced appointment of Anup Vikal as its chief financial officer. Vikal was earlier the CFO at telecom major Aircel. He will be replacing Aakash Moondhra. In August 2015, Snapdeal raised $ 500 million led by Foxconn and Alibaba and existing investors like SoftBank also took party. Prior to joining Aircel, Vikal was group-CFO & head of strategy and IT at InterGlobe Enterprises. He had earlier worked for Colt Technology for three years and headed finance division at Bharti Airtel for around seven years. He has a bachelor's degree in engineering from NIT Surat and MBA from a South Gujarat university.

Freshdesk, has roped in LinkedIn India’s Managing Director Nishant Rao, as its Chief Operating Officer. Rao is also Chairman of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and serves on the Advisory Board for the National Committee on Skill Development, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

China’s leading businessman, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has been appointed by British PM David Cameron for advice on business prior to a 4 day visit to the UK by Chinese president Xi. Ma will also be joining the PM’s business advisory group and close ties with China are the expected outcome of this appointment. Cameron’s business advisory group had 19 members in July.

Former Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Barkha Shukla Singh has taken charge as president of the women’s wing of Delhi Congress on 17th October 2015. She took charge in the presence of All India Mahila Congress President Shobhaa Oza and DPCC president Ajay Maken.Currently, the DCW chairperson is AAP leader Swati Malliwal.

Taxi aggregator Ola has hired ex Infosys CFO Rajiv Bansal as the current finance head. Bansal announced his exit from Infosys earlier and will be joining Bengaluru based Ola from January 1st, 2015. Presently, the Ola CFO is Mitesh Shah. Bansal joined Infosys in 1999 and was appointed as CFO in 2012. Ola formed by founders Aggarwal and Bhati is valued at INR 32,500 crore. Its main investors include Tiger Global, DST Global, SoftBank and Sequoia.

Senior scientist of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, G. R. Chandak has been made the Director, CDFD/Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, a CoE under Department of Biotechnology. Chandak has received an MD in Biochemistry from BHU and doctorate in Biochemistry from Osmania University. With close to 80 articles published in peer reviewed journals, he was studied genetic and epigenetic basis of complex pancreatic disorders. He was also honoured with the AP scientist war from the AP Council for Science and Technology.

Ex Google adviser Omid Kordestani was appointed as the Executive Chairman of Twitter on 14th October 2015 succeeding Jack Dorsey who resigned from the post to become CEO of the social media platform. Omid Kordestani is a tech industry veteran who is also Non-Executive Director at Vodafone, the UK based telecom group. He joined Google in 1999 and became its Chief Business Officer in 2014.

P. S. Jayakumar took charge as CMD of state owned Bank of Baroda. This is at a time when the bank is under scrutiny for alleged black money transactions totalling INR 6000 crore. Ravi Venkatesan, ex chairman of Microsoft India was selected as Non Executive Chairman of BoB.

IAS officer Alkesh Sharma has been appointed as CMD of Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development on 12th October 2015. He will be holding the post for 3 years. He is a 1990 batch IAS officer of Kerala cadre. 1483 km long DMICDC is a state sponsored industrial development project aimed at developing industrial zones and spread across 6 states to develop industries namely Uttar Pradesh, NCR of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Maharashtra government has appointed Shreehari Aney as the Advocate General of the State, succeeding Sunil Manohar who quit in June 2015 citing personal reasons. He has assumed charge on November 14, 2014. Additional Solicitor General of India Anil Singh was given additional charge of AG till Aney’s appointment.

Rear Admiral Ravneet Singh assumed charge of the Sword Arm of Indian Navy as FOCWF on 12th October 2015 at INS Viraat. He has over 2500 years of flying experience on 10 different types of aircrafts. He hails from Jalandhar Punjab and joined the Indian Navy in July 1983.The Flag Officer has taken command of destroyers Ranvir and Ranvijay and frigate Himgiri. He also served as second in command Executive Officer of destroyer Delhi and missile boat Vijaydurg. Singh is an alumnus of Defence Services Staff College Wellington and a recipient of Nau Sena Medal Gallantry.

Telenor India has appointed Sharad Mehrotra as the new CEO while Vivek Sood has been appointed as executive vice president and chief marketing officer in Telenor w.e.f November 1st, 2015. Mehrotra was part of the management team of Unicorn from 2008 to 2013 and head of Telenor Group Asia Distribution programme. Shared will also be a member of Telenor Group’s executive management. Sood will focus on increasing ability to improve customer journeys. Prior to joining Telenor India. Sood was CEO of Grameenphone, Bangladesh’s largest mobile operator. The company has crossed the 50 million customer mark, the first country in Telenor Group to achieve this.

Sekhar Basu has been appointed as chairperson of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, DAE succeeding RK Sinha who superannuated on 23rd October 2015. Basu is currently director, BARC Mumbai and Chief Executive of NRB, part of BARC. Also the chairman of the International Design Review committee for an ITER project, he has been conferred with several awards including Padma Shri, DAE Special Achievement Award and Indian Nuclear Society Award.

Corporate Affairs Secretary Tapan Ray was appointed to the BoD of capital market regulatory authority SEBI. He has succeeded Anjuly Chib Duggal on the SEBI Board. He is a Gujarat cadre IAS officer who took charge as Secretary in Union Corporate Affairs Ministry in the month of August 2015. He has served as an office bearer in numerous capacities between 1984 and 1994 besides handling key assignments in Power, Science and Technology, Textiles and Defence Ministries. Ray has completed his post graduation in Public Policy and International Affairs. He is also a diploma holder in international law and business as well as German language.

Volkswagen has elected CFO Hans Dieter Poetsch as the chairman of its board of directors in the wake of the diesel emissions scandal. The announcement was made during the meeting at the company’s plant in Wolfsburg, Germany and he retained the backing of major shareholders who have the lion’s share of voting through a holding company. Frank Witter will replace him as CFO, a post he retained since 2003.

Finish telecom maker has announce the new heads of Mobile Networks, Fixed Networks, Applications & Analytics and IP/Optical Networks. following the completion of Alcatel-Lucent merger. They are Samih Elhage who currently is the executive VP and CFO of Nokia Networks while Federico Guillen was selected as head of the Fixed Networks Unit. Bhaskar Gorti will head the Applications and Analysis unit while IP Routing and Transport will be headed by Basil Alwan. Nokia in April 2015 had announced acquisition of French firm Alcatel Lucent in an all stock deal valued at USD 16.6 billion. Ramzi Haidamus would continue in his present role as president of Nokia Technologies. Timo Ihamuotila, presently executive VP and GFO, Nokia, would serve as CFO, while Ashish Chowdhary, presently chief business officer, Nokia Networks, would be the chief customer operations officer.

Rear Admiral SV Bhokare YSM, NM has taken over command of Eastern Fleet from Rear Admiral AB Singh, VSM Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet. Bhokare is a specialist in navigation and aircraft direction as well as an alumnus of National Defence Academy, Khadakvasala and Defence Services Staff College. Higher Command course was also studied by him at Army war college, Mhow. The admiral has also been a recipient of the Oudh Seva Medal and Nao Sena Medal. He has commanded submarines Sindhughosh, Sindhudhwaj, Sindhushastra, Indian Naval Ship Beas and INS Vajrabahu. He has also held various prestigious Staff and Operational appointments including Command of Submarine Squadron as Commodore Commanding Submarines (West) and Chief Staff Officer (Operations) at Eastern Naval Command. He was Flag Officer submarines before taking charge of the Eastern Fleet comprising 30 warships, which include Destroyers, Stealth Frigates, Amphibious Ships, Anti Submarine Warfare Corvette, Missile Corvettes, Offshore Patrol Vessels, Missile Boats and Tankers.

Popular micro-blogging site Twitter has announced that Jack Dorsey, who is also CEO of mobile payment firm Square will be its permanent CEO. Dorsey has served as interim CEO of Twitter since former CEO Dick Costolo stepped down on 1 July 2015. Born on 19th November 1976, in Missouri, Dorsey is a programmer and businessman who founded Twitter in March 2006 along with Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams.

Chairman of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India was on 4th October 2015 given additional charge as CEO of FSSAI. This was following the shift of Y. S. Malik to Niti Aayog as an additional secretary. Bahugana is a retired 1978 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS officer and former Agriculture Secretary. He is been the chairman of FSSAI since July 2015. FSSAI was instituted in August 2011 and it promotes public health through supervision and regulation of food safety. It has an HQ in Delhi.

Sarat Kumar Acharya on 1st October 2015 assumed office as CMD of NLC succeeding B. Surender Mohan who demitted office on 30th September 2015 following superannuation. Before this, Acharya was Director HR in NLC. He as worked in numerous PSUs like BHEL, SAIL and NTPC. An alumnus of Ravenshaw College and Utkal University in Odisha, Acharya is now heading a navratna government of India enterprise. NLC was established in 1956 and it is headquartered in Chennai. There are three thermal power stations under NLC.

Apple has appointed former Boeing Co CFO James Bell on its board of directors. He is the only African American to be appointed in the board. There are two women on the 8 member director board. Two top execs, Lisa Jackson and Denie-Young Smith are also from African American community. Apart from serving as the CFO of Boeing during the 38 year career, Bell was also interim CEO in 2005, filling the vacancy created by J Crew Group CEO M. M. Drexler. He also is on the board of Dow Chemical, CDW and JP Morgan Chase.

Future Group, India’s largest retailer has appointed Vinay Bhatia as CEO, Group Loyalty and Analytics. He was earlier senior vice president, marketing and loyalty at Shopper’s Stop. This saw the loyalty cardholder base rise from 0.9 million to 4 million during the 7 year tenure generating 3/4th of the revenues. Kishore Biyani led Future Group will leverage large base of loyal members to triple sales in the next half decade. Rather than following an omni-channel system, it is trying to create an ecosystem by hiring data analytics personnel.

Shri S. Mookerjee has taken over as the new Finance Commissioner and ex officio Secretary to GoI. He has taken charge following the superannuation of Smt. Rajalakshmi Ravi Kumar. He was earlier posted as DG, National Academy of Indian Railways, Vadodara. He is an officer of Indian Railway Accounts Service belonging to the 1978 batch. He completed his BA from DU and BSc (Physics Honours) from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta University. He also holds an MBA from Motilal Nehru Institute of Research and Business Administration, University of Allahabad. His core competence is in IT and Computer Applications as well as Financial Management and Policy.

Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau chief Praveen Dixit was appointed as the state's Director General of Police (DGP) on 29th September 2015. A 1977 batch officer, he will have a tenure of one year and has succeeded Sanjeev Dayal who retired from office on September 30, 2015. Other appointments were also made. Senior IPS officer Vijay Kamble has been appointed as the new DG of ACB while 1981 batch IPS officer Satish Mathur has been appointed Director General and Managing Director of State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation (MSPHWC). Meera Borwankar, Additional DG of Police (Prisons), has been promoted and posted as Director General of Legal and Technical Department.