Srini Gopalan reigns from Airtel to join Deutsche Telecom

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel's Consumer Director India, Srini Gopalan has reigned from the company to join Deutsche Telekom on October 1.  Bharti Airtel is a leading global telecommunications company from India with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa.

"The Supervisory Board at Deutsche Telekom has appointed Srini Gopalan as the new Board member for Europe. Srini Gopalan, currently Consumer Director India at Bharti Airtel Limited, an Indian telco, will join Deutsche Telekom on October 1st and, after an on boarding period, will assume the duties of Claudia Nemat – who will head the new Technology and Innovation Board department and relinquish responsibility for the Europe segment – effective January 1st, 2017," said Germany-headquartered telecoms operator Deutsche Telekom .

"Srini Gopalan brings a number of advantages to the table: he knows the company and the industry, he has international experience and the right attitude for continuing Claudia Nemat's successful work," said Ulrich Lehner, Chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom.

"I look forward to working with Srini Gopalan. We're strengthening technology and IT with the new Board department on the one hand, while on the other hand we're strengthening our expertise on marketing and sales with our new head of Europe who has extensive experience with consumers," said Timotheus Hoettges, Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Telekom.

In his job at Bharti Airtel, Gopalan 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.

Before joining Bharti Airtel, Gopalan worked in the UK for over ten years – at first in a number of functions for Capital One, an American financial services provider, which he left as Managing Director UK in 2009. He then worked as Chief Marketing Officer at T-Mobile UK, where he was responsible for marketing and sales.

He was part of the management team that led T-Mobile UK to the joint venture with Orange, everything-everywhere. After this, he served as Director Consumer Business Unit at Vodafone UK for three years.

Gopalan studied Business Administration at the renowned St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi and later earned his MBA at IIM Ahmedabad, India's leading business school.