A true telecom switch?

• After Dialog hires local ex-Airtel boss Amali, Indian giant gets Dialog’s Suren as CEO

Switches is common parlance in the telecom industry’s hardware, but it appears to have extended itself to the human capital base of two competitors.

Hot on the heels of Dialog Axiata last week announcing the appointment of former local boss of Airtel Amali Nanayakkara as its Chief Marketing Officer, the Indian giant yesterday disclosed that it has hired the local leader’s Chief Operating Officer Suren Goonewardene as its CEO.

Bharti Airtel is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa.

Announcing the new CEO appointment, Bharti Airtel CEO – India and South Asia Sanjay Kapoor said: “Suren brings with him rich domain experience of telecom industry and has an exceptionally strong track record of business successes in each of his previous roles.”

“Given Suren’s vast experience, sharp focus on business goals and able leadership, we are confident that Airtel’s Sri Lanka team will move from strength to strength and deliver on our aggressive growth plans for the country. We welcome Suren to the Airtel family and look forward to him spearheading our long-term goals in Sri Lanka through meaningful connections with our internal as well as external stakeholders including customers, industry bodies and Government.”

Suren, who has earlier worked with Dialog Telekom and Lanka Bell and has now joined Airtel Sri Lanka as CEO, has over 16 years of work experience across areas of finance, sales, marketing and operations.

At Dialog Telekom he managed the Fixed Telecom Services and Television portfolio, and successfully drove the television business to market leadership position as Chief Operating Officer.

Previously, Suren also held the position of Managing Director at Lanka Bell, where he played an eminent role in building and commissioning an islandwide fixed wireless network. His contribution at Lanka Bell was significant towards driving the company’s market leadership position in CDMA technology and driving the company’s growth chart from a small telco to becoming the country’s second largest fixed line operator.

Suren holds a degree in Business Accounting from Monash University in Australia and is a member of the Certified Practicing Accountants of Australian. He also holds a Graduate Diploma in Marketing from Chartered Institute of Marketing in UK.

In his new role, Suren will report to Bharti Airtel Operations Director – South & Sri Lanka Vineet Taneja.

Bharti Airtel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel which commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka in January 2009 and grew to become the fastest operator to reach the one million customer milestone in the country.

Since then, Airtel has expanded its presence to 1,500+ base stations across Sri Lanka and introduced a wide range of innovative service offerings towards enriching the lives of its customers. With over 242 million customers across 19 countries of its operations across Asia and Africa, Bharti Airtel is one of the world’s largest integrated telecommunications companies in the world today. The company is committed to driving the adoption of high speed 3G data services across its markets.

Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. In India the company offers 3G voice and data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national and international long distance services to carriers globally. In rest of the geographies it offers mobile voice and high speed wireless internet. Bharti Airtel had over 242 million customers across its operations at the end of December 2011.