Airtel Business appoints tech veteran Sharat Sinha as new CEO

Telecom service provider Bharti Airtel announced the appointment of industry veteran Sharat Sinha as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Airtel Business, effective June 3, the company said on Thursday.

Sinha will report to Bharati Airtel CEO and managing director Gopal Vittal and also join the Airtel Management Board. He joins Airtel from cyber security company Checkpoint Software Technologies Limited where he was the president of the Asia-Pacific region, the telecom services provider said in a statement.

Sinha brings with him extensive experience in the technology sector, having held leadership positions at cyber security companies including Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, and VM Ware. His previous roles at Ericsson and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (currently Tata Communications Ltd.) have also provided him with a solid background in telecommunications.

"I am confident that Sharat’s broad global experience in product management and business leadership across many of the world’s leading technology companies will provide tremendous firepower to Airtel’s ambitions in rapidly growing our portfolio across connectivity and adjacencies," Vittal said.

Airtel Business is a leader in the business-to-business (B2B) space, offering marquee solutions to enterprises, Sinha said. "I am delighted to join this passionate team as they continue to steer towards enhancing their leadership with future-ready technology innovations and solutions that deliver greater value to customers," he said.

Sinha earned his Master of Technology in Industrial and Management Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his Doctor of Business Administration from the University of South Australia.

In June last year, Airtel announced the departure of Ajay Chitkara, CEO of Airtel Business. Thereafter, Bharti Airtel restructured its leadership in the enterprise arm, dividing it into three segments: global business led by Vani Venkatesh, domestic business led by Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, and Nxtra data centres led by Ashish Arora.

Currently, Airtel has over 500 million customers in 17 countries across South Asia and Africa. Earlier this month, Bharti Airtel reported its fiscal fourth-quarter profit at Rs 2071.60 crore, down 31.1 per cent on-year compared to Rs 3005.60 crore during the corresponding quarter of last year. It had posted revenue from operations at Rs 37,599.10 crore, up 4.4 per cent as against Rs 36,009.00 crore during the fourth quarter of FY23.