Wireless chip major Qualcomm has appointed BlackBerry veteran Sunil Lalvani as vice president and president of Qualcomm India.

Qualcomm also announced the resignation of Avneesh Agrawal, senior vice president and president of Qualcomm India and South Asia.

Avneesh, who spent 21 years at Qualcomm, will be starting his own business venture.

Under Avneesh’s leadership, Qualcomm led efforts to nurture the local ecosystem in India, including accelerating 3G smartphone adoption and 4G LTE deployment.

During his 21-year tenure, Agrawal has played a key role in many of the Company’s key technology initiatives including leading the development of Qualcomm’s first WCDMA and LTE chipsets, and has played a crucial role in driving Qualcomm’s business in India and South Asia.

The wireless chip major recently announced that it will be eliminating 15 percent of its workforce across the globe as part of cutting cost.

Lalvani, who served most recently as managing director of India and SAARC of BlackBerry, will report directly to Cristiano Amon, executive vice president and co-president, Qualcomm Technologies.

At BlackBerry,  he was responsible for driving BlackBerry’s business strategy and growth in India. One of the focus areas was on driving differentiated solutions for consumers and enterprise customers. During his tenure at BlackBerry, he could not improve the market share of the smartphone brand in India.

Lalvani, who has over 20 years of experience in sales, business development, strategic planning and business operations across the IT and telecom sectors, was also instrumental in leading engagement with carrier partners and ISV’s in India, to drive uptake of BlackBerry’s services portfolio in the India region.

Prior to that, Lalvani was heading the enterprise sales at BlackBerry. Lalvani also has worked at EMC, Nokia, Cisco Systems and SITA Equant Network (now Orange Business Services).

[email protected]