Airtel appoints a new leader to consumer business

Bharti Airtel has announced appointment of Raj Pudipeddi as Director – Consumer Business & Chief Marketing Officer for its India operations w.e.f. February 6, 2017. Raj will be a part of the Airtel Management Board and report to Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India), Bharti Airtel. 

In his new role, Raj will be responsible for driving market share, strengthening the Airtel brand and driving customer centric innovations within the teams.

Gopal Vittal said, “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 to lead our Consumer Business. At Airtel, we are obsessed with our customers and I am confident that Raj’s wealth of experience will add fresh perspective to our initiatives to constantly innovate and delight customers. I wish him the very best for his new role and look forward to working him.” 

Raj 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 multibillion business.

Prior to this, he 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 the Philippines, he led the turnaround of operations through a successful deployment of a new go-to-market strategy.

Between 2000 and 2010, Raj worked in the USA on various category roles including Paper and Family Care. He also had a two-year assignment as Associate Director in Procter & Gamble’s global WalMart team, with responsibility for managing the relationship with their biggest customer with sales of over $7 billion.

Raj is an Engineering graduate from Andhra University and completed his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.