Amazon Web Services India and South Asia head Puneet Chandok resigns
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Business Head for India and South Asia Puneet Chandok (pictured) has resigned and is set to leave the company from August 31, 2023, according to sources.
Vaishali Kasture, who heads Enterprise, Mid-Market and Global businesses, AWS India and South Asia (Amazon Web Services India) will take over as interim business leader. The company confirmed the development and said, “We thank Puneet (Chandok) for his contribution and leadership over the past four years and wish him all the best.”
The move comes just a few weeks after the cloud computing giant announced plans to invest $12.7 billion in India’s cloud infrastructure by 2030. This follows AWS’ investment of $3.7 billion between 2016 and 2022, which would put AWS’ total investment in India reaches 16.4 billion US dollars. by 2030.
According to experts, Chandok is leaving at a critical time as the investment is also expected to help the company take on competitors like Google and Microsoft for dominance in cloud computing services.
“Since 2016, AWS has invested billions of dollars in cloud infrastructure in India to support the explosive growth we have seen in the use of cloud for digital transformation,” Puneet Chandok said after AWS announced the new investment. AWS is committed to driving social and economic impact in India. In addition to building cloud infrastructure and helping local customers and partners transform digitally, we’ve trained more than four million people in India in cloud skills since 2017, and invested in six utility-scale renewable energy projects to meet global renewable energy needs with a 100 percent target by The year is 2025. Our investment will help create more beneficial impacts.
AWS India revenue exceeded $1 billion in the year ending March 2022, a growth of 67% over the previous year, according to filings reviewed by media platform The Arc.
Chandok is also moving at a time when Amazon is said to be laying off employees in India across various functions and companies including human resources, support functions and Amazon Web Services (AWS). According to a media report, the company has laid off about 500 employees. The news cannot be independently verified. However, according to sources, the layoffs took place in April this year and the number of people who have been fired is far less than 500.
The downsizing round is part of a layoffs announcement made in March by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, which was expected to affect 9,000 employees. The cuts come on top of previously announced layoffs that began in November and extended through January. Early this year, Amazon began notifying its affected employees of its new round of layoffs, as part of its plan to reduce its staff by about 18,000 people.
In a note to employees in March of this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said it was a “difficult decision” made in the company’s long-term interest. “As we just completed Phase 2 of our Operational Plan (“OP2”) last week, I am writing to share with you that we plan to cut about 9,000 more jobs in the next few weeks — mostly at AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch,” Jassy said. “For several years prior to this year, most of our businesses had added a significant amount of headcount. This made sense given what was happening in our business and the economy as a whole. However, given the uncertain economy we live in, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we chose to be More streamlined in our costs and number of employees.”