Hari Vishwnathan joins Samsung India as chief manager, services and apps

NOIDA: From call centre floor to Samsung. Hari Vishwnathan, a retail and go-to-market leader with more than 13 years of experience in channel management, sell-out growth and retail expansion, has joined Samsung India as chief manager, services and apps, in the mobile experience (MX) division. He started in October 2026 and is based in Gurugram, Haryana, on-site.

Vishwnathan announced the move on LinkedIn, saying he was grateful for the new opportunity and looking forward to learning, contributing and creating meaningful impact. He offered a big shoutout to the hiring and onboarding team of Aditi Mathur, George Allu and Ranjit R for a seamless experience and for their incredible support right till the last mile.

The timing carries a personal milestone. On the day he joined, Vishwnathan completed 14 years of his professional journey, one that began with a role as call centre executive. He said every person he crossed paths with had contributed in some way: some taught him directly, some through their actions, some challenged him, and some trusted him with opportunities. “Still learning. Still evolving. Still hungry to grow,” he wrote, adding that he looks forward to meaningful collaborations, new learnings and mutual growth.

What he brings

Vishwnathan’s expertise spans channel management, sell-out growth, retail expansion, promoter productivity, affordability programmes and loyalty initiatives. He has a strong background in exclusive brand outlet (EBO) scaling, retail training, sales strategy optimisation, market execution and brand visibility. His track record includes revenue growth, operational efficiency and better retail performance across multi-format and multi-market environments.

The career so far

Until September 2026, he was lead, retail operations and affordability, at Tecno Mobile India in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, a role he held from November 2023 and which covered sell-out, retail operations and affordability.

Before that he was business programme manager at Ather Energy in Delhi from August 2022 to November 2023, handling retail sales operations for north India along with special projects.

At Xiaomi India, from October 2018 to July 2022, he was manager, GTM and India retail operations, based in Bengaluru. He handled two key roles: managing pan-India offline retail operations for smartphones, covering GTM execution, retail operations and sell-out performance, and managing end-to-end exclusive store sales and operations for Rajasthan, driving business performance and operational execution.

The training years

His early career was built in training, largely in Jaipur. He was zonal training manager at Lava International from February to October 2018, and training and retail excellence manager at Huawei Technologies from August 2016 to January 2018.

At CarDekho, from October 2015 to August 2016, he was product and process trainer. He onboarded new hiring batches and delivered training aligned with process standards and timelines, ensured process hygiene by tracking candidate performance and running refresher sessions, developed and updated training content including job aids and product write-ups, and published daily activity reports for transparency and compliance.

At Sony, from October 2012 to October 2015, he was technical support national trainer. He trained new hires to process standards and timelines, carried out research and development on Sony Xperia devices to give accurate solutions for consumer issues, and published daily activity reports while maintaining process hygiene through refresher training.

Why it matters

Samsung is hiring a leader who has worked every rung of the handset business, from training desk to pan-India retail operations. Services and apps is where smartphone makers now fight for loyalty beyond the hardware, and Vishwnathan’s blend of retail reach, affordability know-how and loyalty experience suits the brief.