Microsoft appoints former AWS exec Puneet Chandok to lead India operations

At Microsoft, Chandok will oversee the integration of its businesses across South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, the company said. He will also be responsible for the company's focus on key industries through a customer-centric approach with generative AI at its core.

“We are delighted to announce that Puneet will be joining Microsoft India,” said Ahmed Mazhari, President Microsoft Asia.

He added, “Puneet has a strong track record of building and growing technology businesses and leveraging technology to deliver impact and change. As we embrace an AI-led future, Puneet's leadership will play a vital role in ensuring Microsoft’s ongoing success in South Asia, and I extend my thanks to Anant Maheshwari for setting us on a growth path.”

Chandok said, "I am inspired by Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As India expands its own digital public infrastructure, I believe that this mission is more relevant here than ever before, and I am thrilled to be joining the One Microsoft team to make this mission a reality.”

On his exit, Maheshwari said, “I am filled with gratitude for an exceptionally talented team with a strong set of leaders driving this momentum. The Microsoft India team has created a strong foundation of trust and entrepreneurial business models."

In his previous role at AWS, Chandok led the company's India and South Asia business. He worked closely with enterprises, digital businesses, startups, and small and medium businesses (SMBs) to help them reduce technical debt, bring in agility, and innovate. He has also been a partner at McKinsey in India and Asia for over a decade, and held senior regional and global roles in IBM.

Educationally, Chandok holds a master’s in business administration (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, a bachelor’s degree in commerce, and Diplomas in Computer Programming, Networking, and High-level Computer Systems.

Chandok's AWS exit

Chandok's sudden exit from AWS came as a shock as it happened just a few days after the company had announced a major investment of $12.7 billion to construct cloud infrastructure in India by 2030. He was also leading the large-scale AWS Summit that happened in Mumbai recently.

“We are investing in India for the next few decades. We were the first one to set up in India in 2011. Then launched our first infrastructure region in Mumbai in 2016, the second was in Hyderabad in 2022,” he had said.

He was instrumental in AWS' quick success and expansion in India during his tenure spanning 2019 to 2023, give a tough competition to rivals Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Not just Microsoft and AWS, rivals such as Google, Oracle and IBM too are expanding aggressively in India and it as a key growth market having set up data centres and cloud regions.

While Google is investing $1 billion in India to expand its cloud services and set up new data centres,  Microsoft too will be setting up its largest India data centre region in Hyderabad with an investment of over Rs 15,000 crore over 15 years.

According to research firm IDC estimates, India's public cloud services market is expected to reach $13 billion by 2026, as organisations have realized the power of cloud to help them transform digitally.