Spotlight: CXO movement this week (July 22-July 28)

The week (July 22-July 28) saw several CXO movements in the tech industry with some of the major appointments in key business positions. Global IT companies, Google’s parent company Alphabet and ServiceNow, have made new CXO appointments this week, while non-tech companies like Bank of India, Hindalco have also hired in senior technology roles. Movements also happened in startups like grain commerce platform, Arya.ag. Here’s the roundup:

Ex-Standard Chartered Bank CIO Yusuf Roopawalla joins Bank of India as CTO

Bank of India (BOI) has appointed banking technology veteran Yusuf Roopawalla as chief technology officer (CTO). Roopawalla joined BOI from British multinational bank Standard Chartered Bank, where he served for over 30 years. He left Standard Chartered Bank earlier this month, where he last served as chief information officer (CIO), India and South Asia, from July 2019. Roopawalla started as an IT analyst in the Standard Chartered bank in April 1993 and then rose through the ranks to become the CIO. At BOI, Roopawalla will lead the bank’s technology decisions, create a roadmap and work with other decision makers to optimise various IT services and investments to improve ROI and bring efficiency. (Read more)

Hindalco appoints Poorav Sheth as President, CDIO

Indian aluminium and copper manufacturer Hindalco, the flagship metals company of the Aditya Birla Group, has appointed Poorav Sheth as its new President and Chief Digital & Information Officer (CDIO). In this role, Sheth will be responsible for overseeing the company's digital and IT operations, ensuring that technology plays a significant role in Hindalco's development. He will be taking over from the current CDIO, Jagdish Ramaswamy, who is set to retire in the coming months as part of a well-planned succession. Prior to joining Hindalco, Sheth served as the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at Godrej & Boyce starting in September 2020. During his tenure, he successfully established the Corporate Digital division and implemented Digital & Analytics initiatives across G&B's 14 companies. (Read more)

Ex-Flipkart, Amazon exec Jatinder Alagh joins Arya.ag as CTO

Noida-based integrated grain commerce platform, Arya.ag, announced the appointment of Jatinder Alagh as chief technology officer (CTO). Alagh joined the agritech firm from e-commerce company Flipkart where he served as director of engineering since 2021 and managed its warehousing system. In his new role, Alagh will lead the technology and digital initiatives of the company and build hi-tech teams to drive its growth. Alagh comes with over two decades of experience with expertise in product engineering, design thinking, architecture and delivery of large scale systems that process millions of transactions. (Read more)

Alphabet promotes its chief financial officer Ruth Porat to a new role

Google’s parent company Alphabet, has promoted its long-standing chief financial officer (CFO) Ruth Porat into a new role. As part of the newly created role of president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, Porat will oversee Alphabet’s 'Other Bets' investments and work more closely with policymakers and regulators. The new role will be effective from September 1, and the company will search for a successor as the CFO of Google and Alphabet. Porat will still report to CEO Sundar Pichai. Porat has been serving as CFO of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google since she joined the company in 2015 from financial firm Morgan Stanley, where she spent almost three decades. She is the company’s longest-serving CFO, Alphabet said. (Read more)

ServiceNow promotes Detlef Krause as APAC president

Enterprise software and workplace management firm ServiceNow has promoted Detlef Krause as its new president for Asia Pacific (APAC). Krause stepped up from his role of vice president of general manager of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) central. In his new role, Krause will be responsible for building ServiceNow’s customer base, product leadership and partner ecosystem in the APAC region to digital transformation across industry. Krause comes with nearly three decades of experience in the computer and software industry. Prior to joining ServiceNow he had worked at SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft and Orange Business Services, spearheading their technology and digital transformation initiatives. (Read more)

Yellow.ai appoints KT Prasad as chief revenue officer

Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) company Yellow.ai has appointed KT Prasad as the chief revenue officer (International region). He will lead the go-to-market teams in India, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He will work with executive management to implement strategies for Yellow.ai’s expansion of international business, along with driving business growth in customer segments. Prasad has over 25 years of industry experience. In his previous role, he was vice president (enterprise) for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Zendesk. He has also worked with companies like HPE, Ness Technologies, and Adea. (Read more)