Pulse co-founder Akshay Kothari to head LinkedIn India

Professional networking company LinkedIn Corp has appointed former Pulse CEO Akshay Kothari as country manager for India.

Kothari will report to Olivier Legrand, LinkedIn's managing director for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. He would join the company's APAC senior management team, LinkedIn said in a press statement.

"I'm excited to have this opportunity to work with our teams across India, from sales to product and engineering. This new role also brings me back 'full-circle' to India, a high-growth market where there are opportunities abound to create even more value for our members and clients," Kothari said.

Kothari joined LinkedIn in 2013 after the professional networking site acquired news reader app Pulse for about $90 million. Pulse was founded in 2010 by Kothari and Ankit Gupta while they were still students at Stanford University. Following the acquisition, Kothari served as principal product manager at LinkedIn.

The corner office at LinkedIn India was vacant since November after the exit of incumbent MD Nishant Rao, who went on to join Tiger Global Management-backed Freshdesk Inc as chief operating officer.