HFCL strengthens its leadership team

HFCL Limited (HFCL), a leading telecom equipment manufacturer and technology provider, has strengthened its leadership team by appointing three industry veterans – Andrew Westerman, Rajesh Jain, and Santanu Bhattacharyya.

The company’s strategy is to enter new products, new geographies and to reach new customers and hence is strengthening its leadership team.

HFCL in its wholly-owned subsidiary in the Netherlands has onboarded Andrew Westerman as the Vice President of International Sales, Communication Products to lead the sales and business development for the communication products in global markets.

The company has also onboarded Rajesh Jain as the Executive President of the EPC Projects Business. To strengthen its R&D capability, HFCL has onboarded Santanu Bhattacharyya as the Vice President and Head of FPGA Engineering.

Andrew Westerman has more than three decades of experience in pre-sales, business development, transmission and networking. Prior to joining HFCL, Andrew was the Head of Sales, EMEA Region, Mimosa by Airspan where he was responsible for managing and growing direct sales through service providers along with indirect sales.

Having held several leadership positions in renowned organizations like Ceragon Networks, Ericsson and ICO Global Communications, Andrew will focus on sales and business development for HFCL’s entire range of Communication Products in the international market. His appointment will further strengthen the global leadership team of HFCL.

The company had also recently onboarded Dr. Peter A Weimann as the CTO of Optical Fiber Cable business and Jochen Arms as the Vice-President – Sales for the European DACH Region for Optical Fiber Cables.

Rajesh Jain appointment will help HFCL grow its EPC projects business in both the national and international markets. He has over 26 years of experience in varied business sectors, such as telecom & power, EPC and O&M Projects. He has held senior business and cross functional leadership positions in his career and built strong relationships with key stakeholders in Government, PSUs and corporate sector.

Prior to joining HFCL, Rajesh was associated with A22 Infra Engineering Limited, as CEO & Whole Time Director and has previously worked withTeracom Limited, Surana Telecom, MPI Group, and Vindhya Telelinks Limited.

Santanu Bhattacharyya appointment will help HFCL address the tremendous opportunities in the SG space and to build HFCL’s products for the global telecom markets. An industry expert in R&D with over three decades of experience, Santanu is an M. Tech in Communications Engineering frorfi Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Initially having worked as a research engineer with CDOT, he has worked with organizations like Transwitch, Solarflare, and most recently with Xilinx, where his role was the Design Engineering Director. His primary responsibility was leading the Smart NIC development in Xilinx working in collaboration with the global teams at Xilinx.

Commenting on strengthening the leadership team, Mahendra Nahata, Managing Director, HFCL said, “Having made a mark on the Indian telecom sector, HFCL aims to expand its leadership into new geographies, new markets, and new products. The 5G and EPC sector offer a plethora of possibilities and opportunities for an organization like ours, and we aim to make the most of it. I’m delighted to welcome onboard the three industry veterans, who will bring us further closer towards our goal to attain a manifold growth in our international business, and HFCL become a partner of choice for marquee clients in India and abroad.”

I am confident that together we will capitalize on the upcoming growth opportunity in this decade of digital transformation that we are seeing across industry verticals, added Nahata.