SSTL expands its Board of Directors

KOLKATA: Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd (SSTL), the mobile JV between Russia's Sistema and Shyam Group of India, on Tuesday expanded its nine-member board by inducting four new directors. To start with, two Sistema management board members, Feliks Evtushenkov and Alexey Buyanov, have been appointed SSTL directors. This apart, former Tata Sky MD & CEO Vikram Kaushik and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) chairman Bharat Patel have been roped in as independent directors.

"I am delighted to welcome Feliks Evtushenkov, Alexey Buyanov, Vikram Kaushik and Bharat Patel to the SSTL board. They bring with them a wealth of business experience. I am confident their appointment will further enrich the process of providing strategic guidance to the company.," SSTL board chairman Ron Sommer said in a media statement.

The decision to bring two Sistema stalwarts into the expanded SSTL board is siginificant. Evtushenkov, who has worked in numerous roles including strategy & marketing, is now first VP & head of core business assets unit, while Buyanov is senior VP and CFO at Sistema.

The latest board expansion is in compliance with the Department of Telecom's licencing norms, in that the 13-member SSTL board comprises seven Indian and six foreign nationals.

At present, SSTL delivers CDMA mobile services to some 12 million subscribers across 20 circles under the MTS brand.