Essar today announced the appointment of Rajiv Sawhney as Chief Executive Officer for its Telecom Business Group.

In his new role at Essar, Rajiv will oversee the entire management for the Telecom Business Group which operates in a wide range of business segments: telecom, telecom retail and telecom infrastructure.

Rajiv brings with him years of rich experience in the telecom industry having worked with Hutchison Telecommunications for over a decade in multiple roles and various locations across India and globally, the last of which was as the Chief Executive Officer, PT Hutchison CP Telecom in Indonesia. In India he has earlier worked with Hutchison Essar Telecom. He has also worked with Jenson & Nicholson and Blow Plast India.

Rajiv has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore).

About Essar Telecom Business
Essar Telecommunications holds 33% interest in Vodafone-Essar, a joint venture with Vodafone Group and one of India’s largest cellular service providers with more than 55 million subscribers. Essar Telecom also has investments in Econet Wireless as it prepares for mobile network roll out in Kenya and in Obopay Inc., the pioneering service provider for payments via mobile phones.

Essar owns ‘The MobileStore’ - India's first and largest national chain of multi-brand and multi-service outlets in the telecom retail space. It currently runs over 1060 “The MobileStore” outlets and over 2,500 stores outlets are expected across 600 cities in the next 3 years. Essar has a major presence in the telecom infrastructure space with one of the largest investments in tower companies. It builds telecom tower infrastructure and shares it with several telecom operators in India. It has already set up over 3,500 towers in India.

About Essar
Essar Global Limited (EGL) is a diversified business corporation with a balanced portfolio of assets in the manufacturing and services sectors of Steel, Energy, Power, Communications, Shipping Ports & Logistics, Construction and Mining & Minerals. Essar employs more than 40,000 people across offices in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Visit website www.essar.com

Essar Group Contacts:

Mumbai, India
Manisha Awasthi, Telecom Group, Essar, India, Phone: +91 98339 45761, Email: Manisha.Awasthi@essar.com
Sharad Goel, Group Head - Media Relations, Essar Group, India , Phone: +91 22 6660 1858, Email: Sharad.Goel@essar.com
Delhi, India
Parikshit Kaul, Dy. GM, Corporate Communications, Essar Group, at +91 98735 70816, pkaul@essar.com
United Kingdom:
William Clutterbuck, Maitland, at +44 20 7379 5151, wclutterbuck@maitland.co.uk