Reliance Communications (RCOM) has appointed Babu Vittal as its new chief human resources officer for consumer business. Vittal will report into Gurdeep Singh, chief executive of RCOM’s consumer business.
Vittal will help in the transformation of RCOM into an incumbent data player in the fast-growing data market, focusing on the youth and online communities, the Anil Ambani-owned company said in a statement to ET.
Prior to RCOM, Vittal was serving Flipkart as head of rewards and performance, and helped the ecommerce giant form part of its startup team.
Interestingly, ecommerce firms like Snapdeal and Flipkart have been poaching top executives from traditional firms like telcos to help their growth into larger businesses.
The ET report said that Vittal has seen a number of mergers and acquisitions, and he was part of a key Flipkart team which oversaw the integration of Myntra into Flipkart. “This experience could come in handy as RCOM is acquiring Sistema Shyam Teleservices' telecom business and is expected to integrate the teams in a few months,” the report said.
The appointment comes just after the announcement of RCOM’s acquisition of Sistema Shyam's telecom business in the country. RCOM is acquiring Sistema Shyam's wireless service business for 10% equity in the combined firm to Russia's Sistema. RCom will undertake Rs 392 crore of annual spectrum payment for the next 10 years that are due from Sistema for the 3.75 MHz of airwaves it holds in nine circles.
With RCOM acquiring Sistema’s telecom business, Vittal will have the task of hire employees keeping the company’s 4G strategy in mind. Sistema Shyam has already said that RCOM would be absorbing almost all of its 1,500 employees.
RCOM today said that its total net profit in the second quarter increased to Rs 1.56 billion, from the Rs 1.53 billion it earned last year. Total revenue came in at Rs 53.24 billion rupees, as compared to Rs 52.87 billion revenue in the same period last year.
