Bharti Airtel has elevated Raghunath Mandava as managing director and chief executive officer of Airtel Africa.
Raghunath Mandava is currently the chief operating officer of Airtel Africa. Raghunath Mandava joined Airtel Africa as COO in July, 2016. Raghunath Mandava will be a permanent invitee to the Board of Bharti Airtel, representing Airtel Africa.
Raghunath Mandava joined Airtel in 2003 and has served as director – Operations (India); chief marketing officer (India); CEO – Rajasthan Circle (India) and COO – Tamil Nadu Circle (India). Before joining Airtel, Raghu worked in Unilever in several sales and marketing roles.
He is a B.Tech in Electronics from IIT, Kharagpur (1988 batch) and an MBA from IIM- Bangalore (1990 batch).
Christian Defaria, currently executive chairman, Airtel Africa, will become chairman of Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands).
Christian Defaria will be handing over of operational matters to Raghunath Mandava and support Airtel Africa team on Regulatory, Government and Shareholder matters.
