Who is Puneet Chandok, the new head of Microsoft's India operations?

Microsoft, on Tuesday, announced the appointment of Puneet Chandok as corporate vice president of Microsoft India and South Asia.

Effective September 1, 2023, Chandok will assume the operational responsibilities from Anant Maheshwari, the company said in a release.

"Supported by a strong leadership team, Puneet will oversee the integration of Microsoft's businesses across South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, further boosting the company's presence in the region, while deepening its focus on key industries through a customer-centric approach with generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) at its core," Microsoft said.

"Puneet has a strong track record of building and growing technology businesses and leveraging technology to deliver impact and change," said Ahmed Mazhari, president, Microsoft Asia.

Before his appointment at Microsoft, he was the AWS (Amazon Web Services) India president. He was with AWS for more than four years. Chandok was reportedly responsible for the expansion of AWS in India. His exit comes at a time when AWS announced a $12.7 billion investment to build cloud infrastructure in India.

Chandok, who completed his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, spent more than 11 years at the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

He was the deputy general manager, Asia Pacific, at IBM before joining McKinsey & Company.

"I am inspired by Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. As India expands its own digital public infrastructure, I believe that this mission is more relevant here than ever before, and I am thrilled to be joining the One Microsoft team to make this mission a reality,” Chandok was quoted as saying.