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Amazon elevates Milind Pande to spearhead India marketing push
MUMBAI: Amazon Web Services has promoted Milind Pande to head of marketing for India and South Asia, as the cloud computing giant seeks to strengthen its grip on the country’s $7.2 billion market.
Pande, who has spent six years climbing AWS’s ranks, was previously head of independent software vendor marketing, overseeing the company’s startup and software-as-a-service portfolio. His elevation comes as AWS faces mounting pressure from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud in India’s notoriously price-conscious market.
The appointment reflects AWS’s determination to maintain its lead in a region where it has pledged $12.7 billion in infrastructure investments through 2030. Industry insiders suggest Pande’s promotion signals the company’s shift towards a more aggressive, marketing-led growth strategy as artificial intelligence adoption accelerates across Indian enterprises.
Pande brings 16 years of diverse experience spanning telecommunications at Vodafone, media at Viacom18, and consulting at PwC. His track record with Fortune 500 companies and deep enterprise exposure positions him to drive AWS’s next phase of expansion in the subcontinent.
The move underscores the strategic importance of India to AWS’s global ambitions, as tech giants battle for dominance in one of the world’s fastest-growing cloud markets. With competition heating up, Pande’s challenge will be translating AWS’s technical advantages into sustained market leadership through sharper brand positioning and customer engagement.
MAM
Coca-Cola appoints Tapaswee Chandele as Global Chief People Officer
Succeeds Lisa Chang from May 1, reports to CEO Henrique Braun
MUMBAI- When leadership refreshes, culture often follows and The Coca-Cola Company is pouring a new mix into its global people strategy. The company has appointed Tapaswee Chandele as its Global Chief People Officer, marking a key transition in its human resources leadership as long-time executive Lisa Chang steps down after seven years in the role.
The appointment, effective May 1, positions Chandele at the helm of Coca-Cola’s global people agenda at a time when multinational organisations are rethinking talent, culture and leadership pipelines in an increasingly hybrid and competitive workforce landscape.
In her new role, she will report to chief executive officer Henrique Braun, signalling the strategic importance of HR within the company’s top leadership structure.
Chandele brings over two decades of institutional knowledge to the role. She currently serves as senior vice president and executive assistant to president and chief financial officer John Murphy, a position she has held since May 2025, placing her at the centre of the company’s financial and operational decision-making. Prior to this, she spent six years, from 2019 to 2025, as senior vice president of global talent, development and HR system partnerships, where she led Coca-Cola’s worldwide talent strategy and worked closely within Chang’s leadership team.
Her journey with Coca-Cola began in 2001 in India, and over the years she has built a cross-market perspective through roles spanning human resources and talent development. Her international assignments across Turkiye and South Africa, followed by a relocation to the United States in 2017, reflect a career shaped by both geographic and functional diversity, an increasingly critical trait for global leadership roles.
The transition also marks the end of Lisa Chang’s seven-year tenure, during which she played a central role in shaping Coca-Cola’s global people practices through a period defined by organisational transformation and evolving workforce expectations.
Chandele’s elevation comes at a time when HR is no longer a back-office function but a strategic driver of growth, culture and resilience. As Coca-Cola looks ahead, the focus will likely be on aligning talent strategy with business agility ensuring that the people behind the brand remain as globally adaptive as the product itself.
