Qualcomm hires Blackberry's Sunil Lalvani as India President

NEW DELHI: American global semiconductor company Qualcomm has appointed Sunil Lalvani as the Vice President and President of Qualcomm India.

Lalvani, who worked with Blackberry as Managing Director of India and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) will replace Avneesh Agrawal, and his appointment will be effective July 27.

He will report directly to Cristiano Amon, Executive Vice-President and Co-president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Lalvani has more than 20 years of experience in sales, business development, strategic planning and business operations across the IT and telecom sectors.

In this earlier role, Lalvani was responsible for overseeing and driving BlackBerry’s overall business strategy and growth in India and was focused on driving differentiated solutions for consumers and enterprise customers.

Lalvani was also instrumental in leading a strong engagement with Carrier partners and ISV’s in India, to drive uptake of BlackBerry’s services portfolio in the India region.

Prior to that, Lalvani held the position of Director of Enterprise Sales. Lalvani also has worked at EMC Corporation, Nokia Corporation, Cisco Systems and SITA Equant Network (now Orange Business Services).

Lalvani holds a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from Bombay University and a post graduate diploma in marketing management from Xavier's Institute of Management, India.

During his 21-year tenure, Agrawal has played a key role in many of the Company’s key technology initiatives including leading the development of Qualcomm’s first WCDMA and LTE chipsets, and has played a crucial role in driving Qualcomm’s business in India and South Asia.

In 2005, he assumed his role as Senior Vice-President of engineering, where under his direction, the team has implemented a number of key initiatives to expand Qualcomm’s technology leadership and foster the mobile ecosystem in India. He has been granted 159 US patents.