Microsoft India Announced New Managing Director

NEW DELHI: Microsoft India has announced the appointment of Sanket Akerkar as the new Managing Director of its sales and marketing group (SMSG) in India.

Sanket will be based out of Gurgaon and will report in to Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman and Corporate Vice President, Microsoft India.

Rajan Anandan, the incumbent Managing Director, who came to Microsoft from Dell India, is moving on to pursue opportunities outside of Microsoft.

Making the announcement, Ravi Venkatesan said, “In the last two years Rajan has led the organization to successfully land a slew of innovative products including Windows 7, Office 2010, Windows Azure and Microsoft Online Services, among others. Further, his focus on Cloud computing have given us a good foundation for FY11 and beyond.”

Welcoming Akerkar he added, “Sanket brings with him an excellent understanding of enterprises and their needs in an evolving economy, and the new emerging trends around cloud computing that will enable Microsoft India to greater success.”

On his new assignment, Akerkar said, “I am extremely excited to join the Microsoft India team! The short-term and long-term opportunity in India is absolutely phenomenal and I am really thrilled to be part of the great change of what India means to the world and what Microsoft India means to Microsoft”.

Akerkar, who starts his tenure on September 1, 2010, has been with Microsoft US for over seven years. Akerkar was the General Manager for Microsoft’s Mid-Atlantic region and his responsibilities included overseeing the sales, marketing and service delivery functions to the company’s largest enterprise customers in the Mid-Atlantic area of the United States.

Akerkar came to Microsoft from McKinsey & Co. where he worked with software companies on a broad set of sales and marketing issues. He is a Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and also holds a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.

He is on the board of the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross and the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia.