AWS' Vaishali Kasture To Lead Microsoft SMC Unit In India

Ex-AWS India interim country head Vaishali Kasture is joining Microsoft as its SMC (small, medium & corporate) lead for India and South Asia.

She is the second top executive to depart from AWS to Microsoft in the last year, as the companies compete to get a larger share of the cloud business in India. Her predecessor at AWS, Puneet Chandok, took over as Microsoft India and South Asia head in September last year.

As per media reports, Chandok made the announcement internally on 2 September in an email. “I am delighted to welcome Vaishali Kasture as the SMC lead for India and South Asia. SMC is at the heart of India's digital transformation journey and Vaishali joins us at a pivotal moment as we build Al for everyone and copilot India & South Asia's Al transformation”, the email read.

Chandok further said that Kasture brings a wealth of experience across Corporate and Investment Banking, Credit, Outsourcing and Technology, having recently led the AWS India Business where she set up the ISV (independent software vendors) segment, and led the Digital Native and Enterprise segments.

Kasture took to LinkedIn to confirm the development.

"I cannot think of a better time to take up the role as GM for the SMC business in India and South Asia. At a time when corporates and SMBs are harnessing the power of technology for everything from Cloud to AI, data to security, enriching every workflow with Gen AI as the go to tool for productivity uplift, Microsoft is singularly positioned as a full-service technology company focussing on end-to-end technology stack," she wrote.