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(The VNL Team, PDF, 448 KB)
The VNL Team
MANAGEMENT TEAM
Anil Raj — Chief Executive Officer
Anil is a mobile industry veteran with roots tracing back to the early days of analog cellular. After working with various Ericsson companies in Asia Pacific, Anil founded Hutchison India - now the country’s second largest operator (acquired by Vodafone).
Prior to joining VNL, Anil was at Ericsson where among several senior management roles, he served as President of Ericsson’s India operations, and also headed the company’s Smartphone business. During this period, he led the company’s development and launch of the world’s first Smartphone, and also the world’s first commercial Bluetooth product.
He spearheaded and managed the succesful merger of the handset businesses of Ericsson and Sony and went on to serve as Chief Strategy Officer of Sony Ericsson.
Anil has served on the Board of Ericsson Microsoft Mobile Venture and was also instrumental in forging the Symbian initiative where he has held a position on the Board of Directors and as Chairman.
Ruchir Godura — Chief Operating Officer
Ruchir brings to VNL broad management experience in the telecom industry, across operators (Airtel and AT&T) and equipment suppliers (UTStarcom, Telsima and Aperto) in North America and India covering engineering, customer service, product management and sales roles.
Until recently, Ruchir was CMO, Enterprise Services, at Bharti Airtel - India’s largest GSM operator. Before Airtel, Ruchir helped establish the WIMAX business at Telsima as head of worldwide sales. Prior to that he spent nearly nine years with UTStarcom, setting up their global customer support services in New Jersey before moving to India as country manager, South Asia operations
Ruchir holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a Master of Science degree in computer science from the University of Delaware.
Krishna Sirohi — Chief Technology Officer
Krishna Sirohi has more than 20 years experience from technology development leadership within both the telecom field and the defense sector.
Before joining VNL, he served with three of the largest and most respected R&D organizations in India – Indian Telephone Industries Bangalore (1988-91), Bharat Electronics Ghaziabad (1991-95) and Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT, 1995-2004).
His main professional strengths are innovative product definition, architectural evolution, and establishing and managing large technology development competence centres.
Krishna is well versed in design and development of command communication control & intelligence (C3I) systems, large capacity digital (PSTN/ISDN) switches, and GSM based core networks.
During his C-DOT tenure, he lead mobile technology development and commercial operations of DOT’s (BSNL) IMPCS pilot project. He has also represented DOT (India’s Department Of Telecom) in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T) standardization, as vice chair of the special study group on “Beyond 3rd generation Systems” during the last study period 2000-2004. As ITU-T’s SSG, he lead the standardization of FMC.
Krishna has a masters degree in engineering from Indian Institute of Science.
Sanjeev Kakkar — Chief Strategy Officer
Sanjeev Kakkar has more than 22 years of experience in telecom, encompassing product development, project implementation and operations.
Sanjeev has championed indigenous product development in the field of wireless components & systems and delivered many firsts to the Indian market. In 1997, he won the Indian Government’s prestigious National Award for Best Indigenous Technology.
Before Joining VNL, Sanjeev served as Chief Technical Officer with Shyam ACeS (a GMPCS service provider). He also served as Board Director of Central Electronics Ltd (a public sector enterprise).
Sarraju Narasinga Rao — Head of Product Management
Sarraju Narasinga Rao (SNR) is responsible for defining and managing VNL’s product portfolio. He will also lead VNL’s product positioning and market expansion efforts.
SNR brings 17 years of product and technology leadership experience to VNL, most recently including a 13 month tenure at Juniper Networks where he was Senior Product manager for High End Security platforms, responsible for over $120 Million in revenues. This was preceded by a 7-year tenure at iPolicy Networks where he was instrumental in the conception and delivery of the world’s first 4 Gig wirespeed integrated network security platform. SNR held several senior technical and management positions in iPolicy, and is a co-inventor of inline intrusion detection.
SNR has a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Math from Osmania University, Hyderabad, and a Masters degree in Computer Software from the Andhra University Engineering College, Visakhapatnam.
Rajendra Mehta — Head of Human Resources
Rajendra’s responsibility and talent is to build competencies, create programs for employee growth, and stimulate a performance driven culture. Prior to joining VNL, Rajendra worked with Times Internet Ltd. as Vice President & Head of Human Resources.
He has worked for some of the best companies in India and abroad, and has been exposed to leading edge practices and processes in Human Resources.
Prior to Times Group, he has worked with RPG Enterprises, Larsen & Toubro Ltd, Zubair Group in Dubai and Allied Deals in London and Latin America.
KEY TEAM MEMBERS
Mats Nilson — BTS Product Management
Mats Nilson has been part of the development of mobile communications and especially GSM since the early 80’s, working for leading companies including Televerket/Telia, Swedish Telecom International, Radio Design and ABNW. He has also worked in close co-operation with Omnitel Italy (today Vodafone), Lucent and EMS Wireless.
Aside from his engagement with VNL, he is Assistant Director for the Center for Wireless R&D at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, member of the National Radio Committee at the Royal Academy of Science, and Chairman of the Board for the Nordic Radio Society.
Mats has made significant contributions to the GSM infrastructure with particular strengths in technical management, R&D, system development, standardisation and business development.
Christer Nordström — Software Development
Christer has a Master of Science in Electronic Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Previous to joining VNL, he has gathered over 20 years of software development experience, mainly within the field of data- and telecommunications. He’s worked for several major companies within telecom, including Ericsson.
Ajit Singh — MSC Development
With 13 years of telecom experience, and a masters degree in Computer Science, Ajit heads Core Networks at VNL. Before joining VNL, Ajit worked for over 10 years at C-Dot with Fault Tolerance, O&M of Digital Switching, PSTN, Intelligent Networks, GSM, 3G, Fixed mobile convergence and Billing solutions. He is currently leading the Core Network division at VNL, where he is responsible for development of MSC (Mobile Switching Center) and overall System Integration.
Krishankant Jingar — BSC Development
Krishankant leads VNL’s radio network division. Before joining VNL, Krishankant worked with GSM systems for over 10 years as developer and systems integration architect at Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) and Continuous Computing Corporation (CCPU). At VNL, he is responsible for the development of BSC, PCU and generic framework components such as OAM and platform subsystems. He has a Bachelor’s degree in CS & Engineering.
Anuradha Gupta — System Engineering
Anuradha has 16 years of experience in diverse areas within telecom – business development, project management, product development and outsourced software management. Her primary skills lie within embedded systems, research & development, and system definition, design, development, integration and validation. At VNL, she oversees validation (MSC, BSC, BTS and OMC), hardware design and development, infrastructure management and release management.
Nikhil Swadia — Program Management
With 20 years of experience from the telecom industry within business development, project management, project development, outsourced software development and technology consulting, Nikhil is responsible for VNL’s overall program management as well as OMC design and development. He has an MBA in Marketing and Operations, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics.
Anuja Jain – Program Management
With 18 years of experience in the telecom industry, starting with product design and development, then growing into project management, business development and account management, Anuja is responsible for project management of VNL’s projects. Anuja has a Master’s degree in Computer Applications and has worked for organisations like C-DoT and Oracle India.
Mikael Landing — RF Design
Mikael has been working professionally with analogue electronics since 1986 as Circuit designer, System-designer, Troubleshooter, Investigator and Technical project leader. He has worked in projects involving high frequency analog electronics design and smart antenna systems – often in close contact with production. Apart from his technical skills, Mikael has a long international experience from Asia and Europe and speaks fluent English, German and Thai.
Anders Perjons — Verification & measurement
A radio network veteran, Anders has decades of experience within both analogue and digital radio system construction, verification, linking and measurements. He was the chairman of CME20 BSS Usergroup from 1995-1996. In addition to his telecom expertise, Anders is also an inventor and pioneer within sustainable energy sources for transportation - reconditioning electric cars and constructing charging systems for the same.
Anders Hansson – Power Systems
Anders has a Master of Science in Electronic Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He has 14 years of experience in power supply as well as power system design engineering for wireless telecom applications at Ericsson and Emerson Network Power.
As co-inventor of a unique DSP-controlled AC/DC converter for RBS applications and senior systems engineer for OEM power design and development at Emerson in Stockholm, Anders is equally at ease with circuit level and system level power specifications and solutions.
Suraj Chaudhry — Sales and Business Development
Suraj has more than 13 years of experience in the industry and consulting space on engagements across Asia Pacific and the Middle East. At IBM, he worked across verticals, competencies and geographies. At GE Capital, he was involved in the product development and devised the go to market strategy for the consumer finance division. And at Shyam Telecom, Suraj has been instrumental in transforming an R&D based manufacturing company to a services-led customer centric organization. He holds an engineering degree along with an MBA in Finance and Marketing.
Pär Almqvist — Marketing
As an avid promoter of usability and simplicity, Pär has led digital communication projects since 1994 as front-end developer, information designer and later creative director. He combines technical and creative disciplines to create engaging online experiences as well as traditional marketing materials. He has managed projects for several large international brands, startups, small businesses and non-profit organizations. Pär is a widely-published writer within design and usability and an experienced instructor, having taught at leading design institutions.
Elise Alpen — Marketing
An experienced marketing communications professional, Elise managed marketing and product information at Sony Ericsson previous to joining VNL. Combining coordination and creative skills, Elise has led a wide variety of cross-media marketing communications projects. Her track record of successful marketing for both consumers and companies has resulted in a deep understanding of holistic marketing – from brand building and public relations to event planning and b2b marketing.