Idea Cellular and Vodafone Group have announced the proposed leadership team of their combined business, which will come into effect after the merger has been completed.
Kumar Mangalam Birla will serve as non-executive chairman of the merged entity’s board of directors, while Balesh Sharma, currently COO of Vodafone India, will become CEO. Sharma will be responsible for the combined business’s strategy and its execution as well as driving integration.
The positions that will report to the CEO include CFO Akshaya Moondra (currently CFO of Idea) and COO Ambrish Jain (currently deputy managing director at Idea), who will be responsible for Circles Operations and Service Delivery. Nick Gliddon, who serves as director of Vodafone Business Services at Vodafone India, will be responsible for the merged entity’s Enterprise Business, while Manish Dawar, currently CFO of Vodafone India, will have overall responsibility for integration planning, governance and execution.
Sashi Shankar, currently chief marketing officer at Idea, will be responsible for the Marketing and the Brand Strategy for the consumer business for the merged entity, Vishant Vora (currently CTO of Vodafone India) will have responsibility for networks and overall technology strategy, and Prakash Paranjape (currently chief information officer at Idea) will be responsible for the company’s IT operations.
Suvamoy Roy Choudhury, who currently leads Vodafone India’s Human Resources, will be responsible for the Human Resource function at the merged entity. Kavita Nair, who currently serves as associate director of commercial operations at Vodafone India, will lead digital transformation across all functions. Navanit Narayan, Idea’s current chief service delivery officer, will be in charge of the merged entity’s strategy, while P. Balaji, Vodafone India’s current Head of Regulatory, External Affairs and CSR, will be responsible for Corporate and External Affairs at the resulting company.
Kumar Das, who currently serves as Vodafone India’s general counsel, will lead the legal function at the merged entity, Rajesh Srivastava (Ideal’s current CCO) will take up the Procurement Function, while Anil Tandon and Rajat Mukherjee (currently Head of Technology and Head of Corporate Affairs of Idea) will be full time advisers to the merged business in their respective areas of expertise.
Himanshu Kapania and Sunil Sood, who currently lead Idea Cellular and Vodafone India, respectively, will continue in their current roles until the merger completes. The Aditya Birla Group plans to appoint Himanshu Kapania as non-executive board member of the merged entity. Sunil Sood will join the Vodafone Group AMAP leadership team and also help governance through board memberships.
Idea and Vodafone also report that they continue to make good progress in obtaining the required regulatory approvals for the merger. Its completion is expected to take place in the first half of the current calendar year.
