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Australia’s Telstra ropes in Upendra Kohli from Infosys as country head for India

By Anuradha Verma

  • 27 Aug 2014

Australian telecommunications and information services company Telstra has appointed Upendra Kohli as country managing director for India, a newly created role to develop and execute the company’s overall strategy for the Indian sub-continent.

Kohli will be based in Bangalore and will be responsible for customer relationships throughout the country; drive relations with all Business Process Outsource (BPO) and IT service providers globally and work across the company to help coordinate the various strategic relationships Telstra has in India.

Kohli has over two decades of experience in IT and telecom across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa (MEA). Prior to this appointment, he was with Infosys where he spent 13 years and led various industry verticals at the company, including telecoms, in the APAC and MEA regions.

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He played a key role in establishing Infosys’ first Australian and MEA businesses and most recently recently led the South-East Asia and MEA regions for the IT major.

In the past he has worked with Tata Telecom, Telstra VComm (a JV with Telstra, VSNL and IL&FS) AND Ericsson Hewlett Packard Telecommunications.

“India has quickly become a strategically important market, both as a region where we serve a wide range of enterprise and carrier customers, and as a country where Telstra works with service partners to support our global and Australian operations,” Martijn Blanken, chief customer officer, Global Enterprise and Services, Telstra, said.

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“Upendra’s appointment builds on our recent momentum in India, including the launch of end-to-end network solutions underpinned by Points of Presence (PoP) in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and virtual PoPs in Pune and Kolkata,” he added.

 In Australia, Telstra offers mobile services, fixed voice services and retail fixed broadband services. The firm operates networks in Asia Pacific and has operating licences and landing rights in major Asian markets, the US and EMEA, facilitating access to over 1,400 Point of Presence (PoPs) in 230 countries and territories.

In India, the company operates through a joint venture with Bangalore-based IT infrastructure services provider Microland. Telstra holds 75 per cent of the joint venture.

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