GoDaddy India MD Rajiv Sodhi quits

Rajiv Sodhi, GoDaddy's India and Australia managing director and vice president, has quit the web hosting platform to join tech giant Microsoft.

Sodhi had joined GoDaddy from Microsoft, where he served as India director for SMB (server message block), cloud and software sales. He will be rejoining Microsoft in December to head its cloud and server business.

An MBA from Harvard Business School, Sodhi had previously worked with marketing and consulting firm Sapient and software company GrapeCity India.

Andrew Low Ah Kee, executive vice president at GoDaddy International, said in a statement on Monday that Sodhi was instrumental in helping GoDaddy expand its business in India over the past four years.

"India is a priority market for GoDaddy and we're excited about the growth opportunities in the region," Kee said. "GoDaddy will be hiring a new managing director in India as the company accelerates its plans to help small businesses throughout the country build powerful digital identities."

GoDaddy had launched its Indian operations in June 2012 by setting up an office in New Delhi and hiring Sodhi.

The company provides a variety of domain name registration plans and website design and hosting packages, as well as some on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates (also referred to as a digital certificate), domains by proxy private registration, e-commerce website hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting.

Four months ago, GoDaddy had announced availability in Hindi, Marathi and Tamil to enable more small businesses across India to build an online presence.

Headquartered in Scottsdale, US, GoDaddy has several offices across its home country as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore and the UK.

GoDaddy claims to have about 14 million customers worldwide and more than 63 million domain names under its management. The company went public last year and its shares have climbed since then; it is valued around $6.2 billion.

Other players who offer similar services in India include BigRock, HostIndia.net and Net4India. One of GoDaddy's Indian competitors, Directi Web Technology Pvt. Ltd, was acquired by Endurance International in 2014 for $110 million.