 "Amrita Gangotra Joins Vodafone UK As CIO Of Enterprise Business")
In one of the rare examples of an Indian CIO setting a mark globally, Amrita Gangotra has joined telecom giant, Vodafone in UK as the CIO of Vodafone Enterprise. Gangotra reportedly joined Vodafone UK on Monday, i.e. December 3, 2012. Gangotra confirmed her move to Vodafone UK in a phone conversation with Biztech2.com.
Gangotra, who was Director of IT & CIO (India and South Asia) at Bharti Airtel, was reported to have quit Airtel last month. Friday, i.e. 30th November was her last working day at Airtel.
The enterprise business piece is gaining a lot of prominence with the telcos, and with Vodafone’s acquisition of Cable & Wireless early this year, the enterprise business will be a highlight for the company.
Vodafone had earlier announced last week Friday that it will accelerate its integration of Cable & Wireless with the creation of a new business – focused global enterprise unit. What this means is a challenging job ahead for Gangotra. As required with any M&A, Gangotra will need to manage smooth integration of the IT systems of both Vodafone and Cable & Wireless. The new enterprise unit will comprise global enterprise, carrier services, machine-to-machine solutions, and hosting and cloud services.
Among the very few women CIOs in the country, Gangotra spent over a decade with the Bharti group, of which the initial three years she was associated with Bharti Tele-Ventures. Over the last seven years she has been with Bharti Airtel, where she has taken up varied roles in IT. At Airtel, Gangotra was responsible for growing the role of IT as a business enabler and driver, and for strategising, planning and ensuring implementation of IT projects for all lines of business unit.
She was also instrumental in launching technology platforms towards generating new revenue streams like cloud, digital media exchange, m-commerce, m-ad etc. and end-to-end automation of customer life cycle management.
In a career spanning over two decades, Gangotra has worked with Nestle, HCL Comnet and Allen Bradley in varied roles across research and IT.