Vodafone-Idea name circle heads for merged entity

Vodafone India and Idea Cellular announced appointment of 9 executives each from their teams as circle heads for the merged entity, which was proposed to operate as Vodafone Idea Ltd

Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla announced to have been made, the non-executive chairman of entity resulting from the Vodafone-Idea merger, in an internal communication to employees.

Idea Cellular

Mr. Rajendra Chaurasia will head Maharashtra and Goa circle

Mr.Sunil Tolani Mumbai

Mr. Sanjay David Odisha

Mr. Puneet Krishnan will be in charge of the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana circle

Mr. M.D. Prasad will lead the Kerala circle

Mr. Rajesh Naik will lead Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh

Mr. Monishi Ghosh will lead Bihar and Jharkhand.

Mr. Sudhir Pradhan will lead Jammu and Kashmir

Mr. Sanjeev Govil will lead Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana circle.

Vodafone India’s

Arvinder Singh is proposed to take charge of Delhi circle,

Abhijeet Kishore Gujarat,

Murali S. for Tamil Nadu and Chennai,

Arvind Nevatia for Karnataka,

Shivan Bhargava for Kolkata and rest of Bengal,

Nidhi Lauria for Assam and North East,

Amit Bedi will continue as Rajasthan head.

Nipun Sharma is proposed to take charge of UP East

Ashish Chandra of UP West.

The Aditya Birla Group intends to nominate Himanshu Kapania (currently Idea Cellular MD) as non-executive board member of the merged entity with a significant assignment in the group, post-merger. Vodafone India CEO Sunil Sood will join the Vodafone Group AMAP (Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific) Leadership team and also help governance through board memberships.

Manish Dawar, who was recently roped in as the chief financial officer of Vodafone India, will get the overall responsibility for integration planning, governance and execution at the merged entity.

Both the companies have already announced the top leadership team that will run merged entity. Kumar Mangalam Birla is the non-executive chairman and Balesh Sharma will be the new chief executive officer. Idea Cellular’s CFO Akshaya Moondra will head the financial operations. Ambrish Jain (currently the deputy MD at Idea) is set to become the new chief operating officer.

On Monday, the telecom department approved raising the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in Idea Cellular to 100%, putting its merger deal with Vodafone on the fast-track for regulatory clearance.

Vodafone will own 45.1% in the proposed Vodafone Idea, while Aditya Birla Group and Idea shareholders will hold 26% and 28.9%, respectively.

Once the Vodafone-Idea merger is completed, the resulting entity will become the largest telecom operator in the country with around 430 million subscribers.