OneWeb appoints Srikanth Balachandran as CFO

Bharti Global and the UK government-led OneWeb on Friday announced the appointment of Srikanth Balachandran as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Balachandran joins the satellite communications company from Bharti Global, where he was CFO since October 2018. Prior to that, he was CFO of Bharti Airtel for seven years, OneWeb said in a statement.

Under his financial leadership, Airtel engaged in intense merger and acquisitions, grew its customer base five folds to become the world's number three mobile operator in subscriber numbers and expanded its operations to 18 countries, it said.

''He was closely associated with Airtel's successful launch and scaling up of the satellite TV business in India and the rapid expansion of Airtel's Global Business,'' the statement added.

Balachandran began his career as a management trainee at Unilever, and went on to spent 23 years across leadership roles in Finance, Supply Chain and HR in India and the UK.

He is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a Commerce graduate from the University of Madras.

Speaking on the appointment, Neil Masterson, CEO of OneWeb said Balachandran will assume responsibility for ''helping us deliver our ambitious business plan, securing additional funding and establishing high standards of governance.'' Balachandran said OneWeb's plans to create a telecom network in space will be ''game-changing'' and will help realise its vision of 'internet access everywhere, for everyone'.

''OneWeb has fantastic support from our new investors in terms of funding, market access and customer reach. We will invest responsibly for customer experience and profitable growth. I am truly privileged to be part of this exciting journey,'' he said.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company, OneWeb, had last month secured additional funding from SoftBank Group and Hughes Network Systems, taking the total funding to over Rs 10,200 crore.

OneWeb had recommenced satellite launches after billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal-run Bharti Group along with the British government took over as new owners of the broadband satellite communications company, which emerged from bankruptcy last year.

The company recently said it is on track to offer global services to customers from late 2021, starting with the UK, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas, and Canada, with global service in 2022. The company aims to offer high-speed internet from OneWeb satellites in India by mid-2022.