Bharti Airtel Appoints Gopal Vittal as India CEO, While Sanjay Kapoor Quits

Going by the latest series of event taking place at India's largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel, it was announced by the company that its India and South Asia chief executive officer Sanjay Kapoor will step down March 1.

To replace him, Gopal Vittal, group director (Special Projects) will replace his role and will report to Sunil Mittal, chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel directly.

Vittal has spent the most part of his career with Hindustan Unilever and will be the first MNC manager holding the key post. Vittal had also been associated with Softbank, Silicon Valley and Singtel previously.

"I am delighted to announce the appointment of Gopal Vittal as CEO, India, Bharti Airtel." Mittal said." Gopal spent his last year understanding the new wave of mobile telephony, in particular the data space and data experience. This will be extremely relevant and valuable for the next phase of Airtel's growth," he said.

Vital was the head of home and Personal Care business of Hindustan Unilever Limited until he joined Bharti Airtel last year.

Manoj Kohli was said to be the frontrunner for the combined fame and it is also said that Sunil Mittal was keen to appoint Vittal as the CEO and transfer Kapoor to Kenya in order to replace Kohli. But Kapoor decided to part considering it as a clear demotion.

The shares of Bharti Airtel rose 5 percent on Tuesday‘s close to Rs.345. This is the highest since 2012, March 5. The sources close to the company noted that this was due to recent mobile tariff hikes and not because of the changes in the management.