Airtel strengthens its management team, ropes in Raj Pudipeddi as director - consumer business and CMO

Telecom giant Airtel has appointed Raj Pudipeddi as director - consumer business and chief marketing officer (CMO) for its India operations w.e.f. February 6, 2017. Pudipeddi will be part of the Airtel Management Board and report to Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO (India), Bharti Airtel.

According to the press release, Pudipeddi will be responsible for driving market share, strengthening the Airtel brand and driving customer centric innovations within the teams. He has over 22 years of work experience with Procter & Gamble across various functions and geographies. In his last role as vice-president - Oral Care (North America), he led a large team across functions and sites, including manufacturing plants with P&L responsibility for a multi-billion business.

Commenting on the new appointment, Vittal says, "In line with our philosophy to bring on board the best of talent from across the globe, I am delighted at the appointment of (Raj) Pudipeddi to lead our consumer business. I wish him the very best for his new role."

Prior to this, Pudipeddi was the general manager for Latin America and managed multiple categories across countries while dealing with challenges of competition, currencies and other turbulent factors. Earlier, as country manager in Philippines, he led the turnaround of operations through a successful deployment of a new go-to-market strategy.

Pudipeddi is an engineering graduate from Andhra University, and has completed his MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) - Lucknow.