Srini Gopalan quits Airtel, to join Deutsche Telekom

NEW DELHI: Srini Gopalan, director for consumer business at Bharti Airtel, has quit the country’s top telecom service provider to join Deutsche Telekom as head of its Europe business. The German telco announced Gopalan’s appointment as its new board member for Europe in a statement late Thursday.

Gopalan will join Deutsche Telekom on October 1 and replace Claudia Nemat — who will then head the new technology and innovation board department — effective January 1, 2017. Airtel in a statement said, “Srini has decided to pursue opportunities outside of Airtel and we respect his decision.”

Gopalan is moving out after spending three years at Bharti Airtel where he was responsible for consumer business in 23 different regions of India, which covered broadband connections and satellite TV in addition to mobile communications.

His work focused on generating USPs through innovative offerings, which helped differentiate Airtel in a highly price sensitive market. It launched My-Plan, a tariff plan aimed at reducing billing complexities for consumers, under his watch.

Airtel had also launched its zero-rating platform Airtel Zero and introduced separate rates for VoIP calls, both of which had to be withdrawn after criticism on social media.

Before joining Airtel in June 2013, Gopalan had worked in the UK for more than 10 years —with American financial services provider Capital One, T-Mobile and Vodafone. As chief marketing officer at T-Mobile UK, he was part of the management team that led its joint venture with Orange, everything-everywhere. After this, Gopalan served as director consumer business unit at Vodafone UK for three years.

Ulrich Lehner, chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom said Gopalan brings a number of advantages to the table.