Bharti Airtel: Elevation of Gopal Vittal set to force a reshuffling of the top deck

Two senior officials — both former colleagues of the new CEO at FMCG company Hindustan Unilever (HUL) — quitting.

By Chaitali Chakravarty & Joji Thomas Philip, ET Bureau | Updated: Jan 18, 2013, 04.16 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The elevation of GopalVittal as chief executive of BhartiAirtel is set to force a reshuffling of the top deck at the country’s largest telecom company, with two senior officials — both former colleagues of the new CEO at FMCG company Hindustan Unilever (HUL) — quitting.

Vineet Taneja, Airtel’s operations director for South India & Sri Lanka, who was senior to Vittal by two batches at HUL, where both began their careers as management trainees, has put in his papers.

The other senior official to head for the exit is Rajeev Rajagopal — again formerly from HUL, though this time junior to Vittal — the company’s chief executive for broadband and data. All eyes are on B2C division President K Srinivas, who is acknowledged to have occupied the No.2 position in Airtel’s Indian and South Asian operations after CEO Sanjay Kapoor.

Srinivas May Report to Mittal

Sanjay Kapoor is being replaced by Vittal next month. Srinivas, who shares the HUL lineage, was higher in the pecking order to Vittal both at the Indian arm of Unilever as well as during the latter’s earlier stint with Bharti Airtel during 2006-08.

The market buzz is that Srinivas may be allowed to report directly to Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal at a later date, or may be given another senior role within the company. Headhunters ET spoke to say that Bharti may change the reporting structure for Srinivas after Vittal takes charge.

An executive with direct knowledge of the developments said that Srinivas could be given a larger role, but said that this would happen much later. “Currently, the mobile business is handled by Srinivas. The telecom business has become very complicated and changes happen very quickly. He (Srinivas) will be required to do the transition after Gopal Vittal takes over,” this executive added. The Bharti spokesperson declined to comment on specific queries related to Srinivas. The company also declined to comment on the resignations of Taneja and Rajagopal.

SENIORITY FACTOR

It’s not clear if seniority in relation to Vittal is the sole reason for the resignations as one of the officials joined HUL later than the new Airtel CEO.

A head of a search firm said the prospect of reporting to a peer or a junior was indeed a concern among the fraternity of former HUL officials. “There will be some amount of heartburn. It is not that seniority is a factor only in public sector companies. Airtel has some very good people, who have all worked together in HUL earlier. So concerns about reporting to peers or erstwhile juniors are very much a reality,” a search firm head, who declined to be named, said. HUL is a rich repository of business leaders for corporates, and industry leaders say seniority at Levers is a key factor that former employees of India’s largest consumer goods company consider when joining companies employing former colleagues.

An industry executive explained that the ‘seniority factor’ was largely prevalent among those who began their careers at HUL, by joining its management trainee program, a 24-month training module, and then worked their way up in the company.

DIRECT REPORTING TO MITTAL

Several senior Bharti Airtel executives currently report directly to chairman Mittal and this will remain unchanged once Vittal takes over.

These include the company’s finance head for India and Africa, Srikanth Balachander, several years senior to Vittal during their erstwhile stints at Levers, who has been reporting directly to Mittal since mid-2011. The heads of other key functions such as brand, IT and innovation also report directly to the group chairman.

On Tuesday, Bharti announced that its chief executive for India and South Asia Sanjay Kapoor would be quitting next month, and would be replaced by Gopal Vittal, who is currently the group director, special projects.

Vittal, who rejoined Bharti last year from HUL, has spent the last 12 months with SingTel’s Singapore and Australian operations to familiarise himself with emerging trends in data and internet business. During this stint, he also spent time with Japan’s Softbank as well as in Silicon Valley to orient himself to new business streams that are linked to mobility.

India’s mobile phone companies have traditionally hired from fastmoving consumer goods companies (FMCG) as both sectors employ similar marketing techniques to grow their businesses. In his earlier stint with the mobile phone company starting 2006, Vittal was its marketing director.

In 2008, he left Airtel to head the home and personal care business of Hindustan Unilever, and was the second in command there after its CEO Nitin Paranjpe. The home and personal care business contributes over 75% of HUL’s revenues.

In an unrelated development, ET had reported earlier this month that Bharti’s India operations had lost three top executives in the space of a month. In early January, the head of its network operations for India and South Asia, Shankar Halder, had quit, and in the previous month, its supply chain head S Asokan and its director for IT, Amrita Gangotra, had also left. Both Asokan and Gangotra were also on the Airtel management board. These three executives had no links with HUL.

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