Ex-Yahoo Search Exec Gets Big New Gig At Bharti Airtel

REUTERS/Denis Balibouse Anand Chandrasekaran, the former Yahoo search executive who helped the company nail down a deal with Yelp, just started a big new gig at multinational telecom Bharti Airtel.

He'll be Chief Product Officer. Bharti is a huge carrier with almost 200 million subscribers in India. It operates in 20 countries.

Here's the release:

Anand Chandrasekaran to join Bharti Airtel as Chief Product Officer

New Delhi, April 7, 2014: Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today announced the appointment of Anand Chandrasekaran as its Chief Product Officer. Anand will lead product conceptualization, design and development across the consumer segment of the company. He will be responsible for driving best in class user interfaces, content partnerships and product experiences including all current and future offerings across the internet ecosystem.

Announcing the appointment, Gopal Vittal, CEO, Bharti Airtel (India) said, "Airtel has always attracted top global talent. We are delighted to have Anand on board as we sharpen our focus on innovation. I am confident that his rich experience and in-depth understanding of technology and the internet ecosystem will contribute to our endeavor of building an organization of the future."

Anand Chandrasekaran on his appointment said "Bharti Airtel's ethos of empowering employees and entrepreneurship has always inspired me. I am excited to continue to extend Airtel's product innovations and bring delightful customer experiences to users."

Anand join Airtel from Yahoo where he was Sr. Director of Global Search Products and a member of the search leadership team. Previous to this role, he was Sr. Director & Head of Product for Mobile, which was the fastest growing part of the Search & Commerce Business Unit for Yahoo.

Anand is a proven entrepreneur with experience of leading product development, growth and revenue in mobile, consumer internet, search, maps, local and big data across numerous Fortune 500 companies. Prior to Yahoo, Anand was Director of Product Management at Openwave. Anand also co-founded and helped build Aeroprise Inc. before joining Openwave. Under Anand's leadership, Aeroprise personalization solutions for the enterprise became the most-deployed mobility product worldwide for service management. Anand has also served as Venture Advisor at Storm Ventures, a $500M VC firm.

Anand holds a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, a Bachelors in Engineering from PSG College of Technology (India) and has also completed the Global Leadership and Public Policy Program at Harvard University. In 2010, he was named by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, a community of outstanding leaders committed to impacting the future.