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Telecom Lead Team: Mobile major Bharti Airtel has appointed Suren Goonewardene
as CEO of its Sri Lanka operations. Before joining Airtel Lanka, Suren worked
with Dialog as the chief operating officer, fixed telecommunications and
television services.
In
his new role, Suren will report to Vineet Taneja, operations director – South
& Sri Lanka at Bharti Airtel.
“Suren brings with him rich domain experience of telecom industry and has
an exceptionally strong track record of business successes in each of his
previous roles,” Bharti Airtel CEO for India and South Asia Sanjay
Kapoor said.
Airtel Lanka
has over 1.5 million customers with presence in all 25 administrative districts
of Sri Lanka.
According
to a press release, Bharti Airtel Lanka is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel that
commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka in January 2009, and
grew to become the fastest operator to reach the 1 million customer milestone
in the country.
Since then, Airtel has expanded its presence to 1500 plus base stations across
Sri Lanka and introduced a wide range of innovative service offerings towards
enriching the lives of its customers. Bharti Airtel has 242 million customers
across 19 countries of its operations across Asia and Africa.
Suren Goonewardene has earlier worked with Dialog Telekom and Lanka Bell. He
has over 16 years of work experience across areas of finance, sales, marketing
and operations.
Previously, Suren
also held the position of managing director at Bell
Lanka, where he played an eminent role in building and
commissioning an island-wide fixed wireless network.
His contribution at Bell
Lanka was significant towards driving the company’s market leadership position
in CDMA technology and driving the company’s growth chart from a small telco to
becoming the country’s second largest fixed line operator.
editor@telecomlead.com
