Xiaomi appoints ex-Google executive Jai Mani as lead product manager in India

NEW DELHI: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has appointed Jai Mani, a former Google executive, as lead product manager of India operations.

In a Facebook post, the company’s vice president of international operations, Hugo Barra said that Mani has relocated from San Francisco to Bangalore. “One of the coolest things I could have wished for happened this past week, perfectly timed to my first "Asiaversary",” Barra said in his post.

Mani has already co-hosted an Mi fan meet-up with Rohit Ghalsasi, who is assistant product operations manager at Xiaomi India, in Bangalore, Barra’s post said.

At Google, Mani had helped Barra with demos at the Google I/O 2013 conference and was seen during Nexus smartphone launches. He served Google for almost 2.5 years as Google Play Strategy and Analytics associate. In his last role, as per his LinkedIn profile, Mani was a product manager and co-founder of a start-up.

Presently, Manu Kumar Jain looks after Xiaomi’s India operations.

The company is preparing to launch the Redmi Note smartphone, besides making enough Redmi 1 S smartphone available in the Indian market. On Redmi Note, Barra recently said that company would have devices ready to sell in the next two months.

Xiaomi is also preparing to launch its flagship 4G smartphone, Mi 4, around December end in the country. The device is presently being tested on Indian 4G networks.