Hires & Promotions: Byju's, Meesho, Indigo Consulting, Google Cloud

Majid Yazdani named VP, Byju's Lab

Byju's has appointed Majid Yazdani as Vice President at Byju's Lab to propel and further shape the future of education. Working on personalisation and other AI applications to the education sector, Majid will be responsible for incubating new ideas and delivering breakthrough solutions across BYJU’S ecosystem of learning products at BYJU’S Lab. Majid, who will be operating from the United Kingdom, will set up a team of research scientists to work on innovative and powerful learning experiences for students.

Yazdani previously worked as a staff scientist at Linkedin and at the Idiap Research Institute in Switzerland. He joined Facebook AI (Meta AI) in 2018 to construct neural networks with compartmentalized knowledge and reasoning. He has contributed significantly to FB's customer support using large-scale generative language models. He also holds three patents and has 24 research papers in the fields of natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

He has over 15 years of experience in technology and AI, having graduated from Sharif University of Technology in 2008 with a BSc. in Computer Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in June 2013.

Commenting on the appointment Dev Roy, Chief Innovation and Learning Officer, Byju's said, "We are excited about having Majid on board and scaling up BYJU'S Lab by harnessing the global pool of highly skilled technical talent. At BYJU'S, we are entirely student-centric at our core. Every decision is made with an all-encompassing promise to support the student lifecycle from the grassroots level. By assembling a robust team of high-calibre specialists, BYJU'S aspires to make technology accessible and approachable. This will allow us to push limits, create value, and create more impactful learning programmes for students globally."

Sharing his thoughts on his new role, Majid Yazdani, Vice President, Byju's Lab said, "Technology in education is not just about automation, but also about harnessing it in the best way possible to empower students into becoming lifelong learners. Education has the power to change the world, and I'm pleased to be joining the BYJU'S family and embarking on an exciting new path to deliver tech-driven learning to make quality education accessible, equitable, and contextual for every student."

Meesho Appoints Harsh Chaudhary to Lead Monetisation

Meesho has named Harsh Chaudhary as CXO for Monetisation. In this role, Harsh will lead the team that bolsters revenue generation from Meesho’s various business units. His appointment to the leadership team will further augment Meesho’s growth and accentuate its scale.

An alumni of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Harsh has held leadership positions with brands such as Disney+ Hotstar, Myntra and McKinsey & Company. In his previous role, he was leading teams across category, growth partnerships, strategy and analytics and helped build the video subscription monetisation at Disney+ Hotstar. As a seasoned business leader, he will be responsible for designing and executing the blueprint for monetising Meesho’s business model.

Commenting on the appointment Vidit Aatrey, Founder & CEO, Meesho said, “We are excited to welcome Harsh Chaudhary, who comes with a demonstrated history of spearheading and scaling business growth. His expertise in strategic partnerships and analytics will help take Meesho to greater heights. As we further our mission to digitize MSMEs and bring the next billion users online, monetisation will be an integral part of Meesho’s growth story.”

In his new role, Harsh Chaudhary, CXO, Monetisation, Meesho said, “Meesho has made significant strides in shaping and transforming India's e-commerce landscape. The company’s positive growth trajectory strengthens the promise it has in store for India’s unorganized retail sector. I am thrilled to join the company in its continued efforts towards building for Bharat. I look forward to building and enhancing the company’s monetisation roadmap.”

Meesho has strengthened its leadership team with the recent appointments of Sourabh Pandey and L N Swaminathan to head Fulfillment & Experience and Seller Growth respectively. The company also appointed Dhiresh Bansal as its Chief Financial Officer.

Publicis Groupe elevates Jose Leon as Managing Director-Indigo Consulting

Publicis Groupe has elevated Jose Leon from COO to Managing Director for Indigo Consulting, the Digital Business Transformation (DBT) arm of the company in the country. Jose Leon is a digital strategy and tech expert and an effective senior leader with over 25 years of corporate experience across global brands like Adobe and Xerox. He joined Publicis Groupe as the President of the DBT business and then was promoted as the COO of the company in 2020. 

Insofar, Jose worked closely with Rajesh Ghatge, the erstwhile CEO of Indigo Consulting, who has been in transition to a wider role in Publicis Groupe in recent months. Said Rajesh, “There could be no better succession plan than Jose at the helm of Indigo Consulting. He has considerably accelerated investments by bringing in best-in-class talent across Delivery & Technology functions and plans to ramp-up these endeavours through 2022-23, for Bespoke Software Engineering, Core Application Modernization and CX & EX Re-imagination projects.”

Moving forward, Jose will work closely with Amaresh Godbole, the newly appointed CEO, Digital Technology Business for Publicis Groupe India.  

Said Jose on his appointment, “My main focus has been to change and challenge the way Indigo Consulting work with its customers and create a world-class agile organization. Our foundation is solid. With massive acceleration in digital demand, our line-of-sight to demand is strong and my goal is to ensure that our endeavors will meet the velocity we see in the market for DBT business leading to exponential rather than incremental growth”. 

Amaresh Godbole commented, “Indigo Consulting has deep domain knowledge across financial services and retail, which will be key growth drivers for Publicis Groupe’s digital technology business, especially D2C Commerce. I’m grateful to inherit a strong leader in Jose who runs the Indigo Consulting business with passion and ownership. I’m excited to partner with him as he leads the brand into its next phase of growth across software engineering, content platform build, e-commerce and data offerings.”

Virginia Sharma joins Google Cloud as India Marketing Head

Virginia Sharma has been appointed as the India Marketing Head for Google Cloud. Prior to this, Sharma worked with JioSaavn as Vice President - Brand Solutions. 

As per Sharma's LinkedIn profile, her earlier stints include working with LinkedIn as Sales Director, Marketing Solutions for about six years. She worked with software major IBM in various roles including Vice President, marketing, systems and technology group, CMO India/VP, marketing and communications; director, marketing and communications, software among others. 

"I recently joined Google to lead Cloud marketing for the region, after 8 years in business leadership roles in consumer technology companies like JioSaavn, India’s leading audio OTT platform and LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network. I am very proud of the high performance and gender-balanced sales and servicing teams I built as a business leader. I am known as a "systems thinker with empathy" who helps companies scale up from 1 to 10 and do more with less", she said on LinkedIn.

Sharma, an Indian School of Business alumnus, has been in the marketing domain since 1999.