Reliance Globalcom - Leadership Team

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Corporate Leadership Team

Punit Garg
President & CEO, Reliance Globalcom

Punit Garg is President & CEO of Global Enterprise Business Unit of Reliance Communications. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Garg served as President & CEO of Reliance Globalcom Ltd. since January 2006.

Mr. Garg has been a member of the Senior Management Team of Reliance Communications since inception. He has held a number of key leadership positions during his career in Reliance Communications. Mr. Garg was instrumental in setting up the Enterprise business in India, where he led planning and launch of fixed wireless phones, public call office and broadband.

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Mr. Garg successfully led RCOM’s global business to achieve enviable leadership position in the Managed Services and Enterprise Connectivity space in the U.S. and Europe through a string-of-pearls acquisition strategy by acquiring UK-based FLAG, US-headquartered Yipes and UK-headquartered Vanco. RCOM is one of the only two Asian companies ranked among Top 10 Managed Services providers globally.

Before joining Reliance Communications, Mr. Garg was Managing Director, Lockheed Martin Global Telecom, responsible for Joint Ventures and Business Management for the South Asia Region. Mr. Garg has held senior executive positions in leading companies including COMSAT, Jet Airways and Equant (formerly SITA).

Mr. Garg has a Bachelor's degree in Engineering.

V.S. Gopi Gopinath
President and Chief Operating Officer - Global Enterprise Business
Reliance Communications

V.S. Gopi Gopinath is President and COO of the Enterprise business of Reliance Communications, part of the $29 Bn Reliance Group of companies. In this capacity he manages Reliance Communications’ global enterprise business spanning the geographies of India, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Americas. Mr. Gopinath came to Reliance in June, 2011 from AT&T, where he was Chairman and CEO of AT&T Global Network Services India, leading AT&T’s enterprise business in India, based in Bangalore. Mr. Gopinath assumed these responsibilities for AT&T, in February 2008 to capitalize on the burgeoning demand for telecom services in India.

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From January 2007 to February 2008, Mr. Gopinath was Regional VP of AT&T Asia Pacific, managing the direct sales and channel sales teams with a focus on business growth across 13 markets in the region, excluding Japan but including India. Previously, Mr. Gopinath was vice president of AT&T’s GM2006 Program based in the U.S. that resulted in AT&T winning a $1 billion, 5-year global contract from General Motors.

From 1985 to 2005, Mr. Gopinath held several senior positions in Sales, Marketing, Product Development and Information Services at Sprint, Global One and Equant in the U.S., Belgium and Hong Kong.

Mr. Gopinath holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in Engineering from the University of Iowa, and a BS in Engineering from the University of Madras, India.

Rory Cole
Chief Operating Officer - Wholesale Business
Reliance Globalcom

Rory Cole is responsible for Reliance Globalcom’s Data and Voice business units focused on providing services to Carriers and ISPs globally. He has vast experience and proven track record of radically improving the financial and operating performance of large multibillion dollar telecommunications companies.

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Rory Cole’s experience includes complex corporate and financial restructurings including that of MCI/ Worldcom, where he was the Chief Financial Officer of EMEA, MCI, a division worth $3.5 Bn. He has also played a major role in Verizon’s acquisition of MCI where he was the Chief Operating Officer for Verizon Business’ International business unit. This unit operated in 85 countries and had annual turnover of $4.5 Bn.

Rory holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Computer Science from Ohio State University.

Robert (Bob) Schellman
Chief Technology Officer, Reliance Globalcom

Bob is an operations and engineering professional with over 39 years of experience as a senior level leader and consultant in the information security, wireline, wireless and data networking industry segments. He has held executive and senior management positions in number of international and US established and start-up companies. His current role is Chief Technical Officer with Reliance Globalcom. Prior to joining Globalcom Bob provided executive consulting services with assignments in Sabafon (Yemen) as the Deputy CEO, Nortel (India) as an executive consultant, Network Operations, MIEL e-Security (India) as the Head for the Managed Security Service, Mahindra-British Telecom (India) as the VP for Global Managed Services and Reliance Infocomm (India) as the Executive VP of Network Operations & Maintenance.

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Prior to becoming an international consultant, Bob spent 28 years in corporate and 8 years as an officer in the US Army Signal Corps. He has held positions with iNNERHOST as the COO, Metricom as the Sr. VP of Network Operations & Services, Telocity as the VP of Operations, UUNET/WorldCom as the Director of Network Planning & Implementation and DATAP Systems as the General Manager of the telecom segment. Bob has also held director and senior manager positions for the US Government, MCI and Sprint. In addition to his civilian career Bob served 24 years as a US Army Signal Corps officer encompassing 8 active duty and 16 reserve duty years.

Bob is a Non-Executive Advisory Board Member for Kineticom, Inc. and to Tribal Shout, Inc.

He holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from The Citadel and has graduate studies, in Telecommunication and Automation Systems Engineering and Management, at Southern Methodist University and the University of Southern Mississippi.

Jan Huizeling
Chief Information Officer, Reliance Globalcom

Mr. Jan Huizeling is the CIO for Reliance Communications Global Enterprise. He has got 20 years experience as an IT Leader and has worked across the Globe in the Automotive, Logistics and Telecommunications Industry.

Prior to joining Reliance in 2008, he was Group CIO for Christian Salvesen PLC, one of Europe’s largest Transportation and Logistics companies. In addition he has held similar positions at GE Capital Logistics, TNT and Groupe CAT.

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Mr. Jan Huizeling holds a degree in Business Administration.

Girish Kulai
Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development

Girish Kulai, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development, Reliance Globalcom has been with Reliance Communications since 2001.
Mr. Kulai was part of the core team responsible for start-up of the Global business of RCOM. Mr. Kulai has been closely involved in acquisition and integration of 3 international companies including FLAG Telecom, Yipes Inc and Vanco which has helped to position RCOM as one of the leading managed services providers in the world. Since December 2010, Mr Kulai has been the Interim CFO of Reliance Globalcom. Mr Kulai is responsible for the Annual Operating Plan, Commercial control of capital and operating expenditure, Performance Management tracking and Investor Relations.

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Before joining Reliance Communications, Mr. Kulai was at Accenture in India from 1996 to 2001 working on variety of management consulting projects. His last position was Manager. Mr. Kulai has MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles and B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

Vidyut Varma
Executive Senior Vice President, India 1 Zone

Vidyut Varma is the Executive Senior Vice President heading the India 1 Zone. He joined RCOM in 2002 and has a total of 25 years of vast experience.

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Vidyut has worked for reputed organisations like IBM and Wipro prior to joining RCOM. He is an industry veteran in enterprise solutions across Banking & Finance, Telecom, Manufacturing, Retail & Distribution and Government domains.

He is a graduate from Delhi University.

Owen Best
Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific

Owen Best is the President, APAC at Reliance Globalcom based in Hong Kong. He has vast experience in global telecommunications infrastructure and serviceses businesses particularly in Asia. Owen has occupied this position since 1998, prior to which he was Executive Country Head in Japan for four years and in Korea for two years, at Telstra.

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He has a Bachelor of Electronics Engineering Degree, and an MBA – both from the University of Queensland, in Brisbane Australia.

Michael P Sauer
President, Americas

Michael Sauer is the Head, Americas at Reliance Globalcom. Prior to that, Mr. Sauer was employed by MCI, where he was Senior Vice President of International Relations and Carrier Services since 1993. While at MCI, he was responsible for directing MCI’s global activities, worldwide correspondent services and business development, including MCI’s relationship with over 225 international telecommunication companies.

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Michael Sauer has more than 25 years of international telecommunication experience and is one of the industry’s leading experts in international product and service contract negotiations. He began his telecommunication career at ITT in 1981.

Michael Sauer has graduated from the Rutgers University in 1978 with a B.A. in Economics