Spotlight: CXO movements this week (Dec 9 — Dec 15)

The week of December 9-15 saw several CXO movements in the technology industry, with major appointments in key business positions. Technology companies like Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Securonix, among others, made important new announcements in their leadership teams. Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services (AWS) loses its second India head in less than a year. Here's the roundup.  

BlackBerry appoints John Giamatteo as CEO 

Canadian technology company BlackBerry announced the appointment of John J Giamatteo as its new Chief Executive Officer and as a member of its Board of Directors, effective immediately. Richard (Dick) Lynch, who served as interim CEO since November 4, will continue as Board Chair. Giamatteo has over 30 years of experience with global technology companies and has served as the President of BlackBerry's Cybersecurity business unit since October 2021. During that time, he has driven significant enhancements to the product portfolio, go-to-market strategy and organizational efficiency. Prior to BlackBerry he was President and Chief Revenue Officer at McAfee.    

Before that, John served as Chief Operating Officer at AVG Technologies, a leading provider of internet and mobile security. He also held leadership positions with Solera, RealNetworks and Nortel Networks. (Read more) 

Jayesh Sanghrajka elevated to CFO of Infosys 

India’s second-largest IT services company Infosys announced the appointment of Jayesh Sanghrajka as the chief financial officer (CFO), after Nilanjan Roy stepped down from his post. Sanghrajka will assume office on April 1, 2024.Sanghrajka is currently the executive vice president and deputy CFO at Infosys, serving in the latter role for the last eight years. He is responsible for various areas of the finance function including investor relations, business finance, corporate finance, treasury and tax; additionally, he also oversees the mergers and acquisitions portfolio. Overall, he has spent 18 years across two stints and has performed various leadership roles. An industry veteran and a Chartered Accountant, he has a career spanning 25 years with companies like MuSigma and Rediff on his resume. (Read more) 

Richard Lobo to join Tech Mahindra as CHRO 

Richard Lobo, the former EVP and Head of HR at Infosys, is reportedly joining Tech Mahindra, as the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) effective January 2024. Richard is currently serving as a Freelance Strategic HR Advisor, and will assume his new role under the leadership of the recently appointed CEO, Mohit Joshi. The official press release announcing his appointment as CHRO is yet to be published on the company website. In August 2023, Richard bid farewell to Infosys after more than two decades of service. This decision followed the announcement of Sushanth Tharappan's appointment as the Head of HR in July 2023. Subsequently, Richard was transferred to the Special Projects team under the leadership of CEO Salil Parekh. 

Nitin Chalke joins Schindler Group as CEO – India, South Asia 

Schindler Group, a Swiss-based global provider of elevators, escalators and related services, has appointed Nitin Chalke as president and CEO- India and South Asia. Chalke posted about the development on LinkedIn. He wrote, "I look forward to working again with the known and new faces establishing and nurturing old and new networks and collectively achieving new milestones." Chalke started his career as the director of field operations in Schindler India in 1998. After 11 years of service, he moved on to join Eaton in 2009. With 25 years of experience, Chalke specializes in developing long-term growth strategy frameworks, revenue acceleration and margin growth. 

Securonix appoints Venkat Kotla as CTO 

Cybersecurity firm Securonix has appointed Venkat Kotla as its chief technology officer. Kotla will lead and scale the company’s engineering function and develop partnerships with other technology organisations to support the demand for the company’s security information and event management (SIEM) solutions. An industry veteran, Kotla has an experience of 25 years at enterprise software companies. In his most recent job role, Kotla was the vice president and head of engineering for Economy business unit at workplace productivity solutions provider Atlassian. Under his leadership, the Economy line of business at Atlassian grew to more than $500 million ARR. Before Atlassian, Kotla worked with Google for 14 years, serving in various senior engineering leadership roles including Senior Director of Engineering for Google Assistant and the Google Looker, a multi-cloud enterprise SaaS for business intelligence, data applications, and embedded analytics. Securonix has also appointed Biju Muduli as Chief Marketing Officer this week. Muduli has more than 15 years of experience in strategic marketing and global operations. She most recently served as the Chief Marketing Officer at Onapsis, a company dealing with SAP and Oracle business applications cybersecurity. (Read more) 

WEX names India-born Sachin Dhawan as its new CTO 

WEX, a global commerce platform that offers payment processing and information management services to business, named Sachin Dhawan as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The India-born executive previously served as CTO of Stitch Fix, a San Francisco-based online personal styling service, leading product and technology development. In his new role, Dhawan will lead product and platform technology, architecture, cybersecurity, infrastructure and cloud engineering, technical operations, enterprise applications and corporate IT, and technology-risk management. Prior to joining Stitch Fix, Dhawan was Visa’s senior vice president of infrastructure and operations. His other experience includes growing PayPal’s consumer products and shaping Microsoft’s advertising business, in more than 16 years at those two companies. (Read more) 

Ranjani Mani named as Microsoft’s New AI Director 

Ranjani Mani has been appointed as the new AI director at Microsoft. She previously worked as the lead overseeing Atlassian’s CSS Analytics team for Enterprise, collaborating closely with Engineering and Product leaders. She is going to lead the GenAI tech specialist team at Microsoft. In her official LinkedIn post, she wrote, “Bringing together my passion for Gen AI and driving end-to-end business outcomes for end customers with technical leadership, I am super stoked to be working with technologists working at the cutting edge of Gen AI.” Mani who is a well-known name in the field of AI, further added, “This is also a step towards my personal mission to bring more women into AI Leadership.”  

AWS loses second India head within months; Vaishali Kasture quits 

Vaishali Kasture has resigned as Country Head, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Commercial Business India & South Asia after just seven months in the position, according to two sources familiar with the matter who informed TechCircle. Kasture, who joined Amazon roughly five years ago, was appointed interim leader of commercial business for AWS India and South Asia in June after, Puneet Chandok, left the company that month. Chandok, who worked with AWS for over four years, leading the company's India and South Asia business, later joined Microsoft India as the corporate vice president for India and South Asia, succeeding Anant Maheshwari. Before becoming the interim country head, Kasture served as the head of enterprise, mid-market, and global businesses in India and South Asia during her nearly five-year tenure at AWS. (Read more)