The Indian multinational telecommunications service provider Bharti Airtel has announced the appointment of PK Sinha and Shyamal Mukherjee as Independent Directors on its Board of Directors. The appointments now need to be approved by the shareholders during Airtel’s upcoming Annual General Meeting. While PK Sinha has served as the cabinet secretary for over four years, Shyamal Mukherjee is the former Chairman and Senior Partner of PwC India. The board of directors will be seeing more changes this year which has also been confirmed by the company.
The Changes in the Board
PK Sinha is a retired IAS officer and as mentioned above served as the Cabinet Secretary for more than 4 years before moving to the Prime Minister’s Office. He took his retirement after 44 years of service for this nation in March of the last year. He has been a government nominee Director in numerous major Public Sector Undertakings and is well acquitted with the principles of healthy corporate governance. Shyamal Mukherjee on the other hand is the former Chairman and Senior Partner of PwC India and was at the forefront of making PwC a future-ready firm. Shyamal became a part of the PwC in 1984 and made a partner in 1993 and has served in multiple leadership roles since then. Shyamal also serves as an Independent Director on the board of ITC Ltd and a member of its Audit Committee. Apart from these, Bharti Airtel has also announced that the Lead Independent Director Manish Kejriwal would be retiring on September 25, 2022, on completion of his second tenure. Shishir Priyadarshani will also be leaving the board with effect from October 31, 2022, and retired IAS D. K. Mittal would be designated as Lead Independent Director with effect from September 26, 2022. The Chairman at Bharti Airtel at Sunil Bharti Mittal stated that Airtel takes pride in having one of the most distinguished Board of Directors that is committed to high standards of corporate governance. He further informed that these appointments are made with a long term view - to make the board future-ready, address the long term requirements of the Company and ensure a smooth transition in key board positions.
