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Nokia names Samar Mittal as India country business leader and Vibha Mehra as India country manager
New leadership model sharpens focus on AI, cloud and telecom growth
NEW DELHI: Nokia has reshaped its leadership in India, appointing Samar Mittal as India country business leader and Vibha Mehra as India country manager, effective 1 April, as it doubles down on one of its most important growth markets.
The Finnish telecom major said the move is part of a refreshed leadership model designed to strengthen its local presence and better align with opportunities across telecom networks, artificial intelligence, cloud services and mission-critical enterprises.
Mittal will steer the company’s go-to-market strategy in India, focusing on deeper engagement with telecom operators, technology partners and large enterprises. His mandate includes expanding strategic partnerships and tapping into new growth pockets as India accelerates its digital push.
Mehra, meanwhile, will oversee Nokia’s broader presence in the country. Her remit spans communications, government relations and public affairs, alongside shaping the company’s people strategy, site operations and corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Both leaders bring extensive experience to the table. Mittal has nearly three decades in telecom and IT and previously led Nokia’s cloud and network services business across the Middle East and Africa. Mehra has over 26 years of experience and has held roles at Microsoft, Intel and Tata Consultancy Services, most recently heading government relations for Nokia in Asia Pacific.
The dual leadership structure signals a more focused play for India, where demand for connectivity, digital infrastructure and AI-led services continues to gather pace.
With fresh leadership at the helm, Nokia appears to be tuning its India strategy for scale, aiming to stay firmly in step with the country’s fast-evolving digital ambitions.
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YES Bank appoints S Anantharaman as chief risk officer
Former Jio Financial Services group chief risk officer takes charge of enterprise-wide risk at the embattled private lender
MUMBAI: YES Bank is not taking chances with risk anymore. The private lender has appointed S Anantharaman as its chief risk officer, a hire that signals the bank’s continued effort to rebuild credibility and tighten the controls that once famously slipped.
Anantharaman arrives from Jio Financial Services, where he served as group chief risk officer and built a risk management architecture spanning lending, payments, insurance broking and asset management from the ground up. Before that, he held the chief risk officer role at Bank of Baroda and senior leadership positions at HDFC Bank and L&T Finance Holdings. Three decades in banking and financial services, in other words, with scars and qualifications to match. He is a chartered accountant and a CFA charterholder.
At YES Bank, his brief is considerable. Anantharaman will oversee the bank’s entire enterprise-wide risk framework, covering credit policy, market risk, operational risk, information security, data governance, analytics, model governance and data privacy. It is, in short, every lever that matters when a bank is trying to prove it has grown up.
YES Bank’s turbulent past needs little rehearsing. What it needs now is exactly what Anantharaman has spent thirty years building: the kind of risk culture that stops problems before they become headlines. The appointment suggests the bank knows it.
