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IDC India ropes in Mahalingam Balaji as research director
MUMBAI: IDC India has announced the appointment of Mahalingam Balaji to the post of research director.
Balaji joins IDC from Hewlett-Packard India, where he was director of strategy and planning for printing and personal systems group.
He brings over 21 years of IT industry experience to IDC India, which has been gained while he was based in India and Singapore. He is an IT industry veteran with deep experience in printing, PC, servers, services, enterprise and commercial channels and various other domains.
In his previous roles, Balaji has held various leadership positions across sales, services, marketing and distribution functions, sales and marketing analytics (market modeling, next purchase likelihood, business and market intelligence and account revenue optimisation) as well as pricing analytics across enterprise, commercial and consumer markets. Academically, he is an engineer and an MBA in operations management.
“After spending two decades in various leadership roles in the vendor community, my decision to join IDC India was catalysed by its clear vision for building the best-in-class research and advisory firm in the country, the organisation’s customer centric approach and their innovative solutions for customers. I am looking to leverage my experience to enable the team to develop new and innovative solutions and serve our customer needs’ even better,” said Balaji.
IDC India is strengthening its leadership team at an opportune time with it planning significant product expansions in city level quantitative research tracker programmes, cloud services and SMB and channels focused research. Since establishing its wholly owned subsidiary in 2011, the firm has made significant strides and has a large footprint in India with three offices and 32 analysts and consultants serve its clients through research and advisory services.
Venu Reddy, the incumbent, has moved into a new role within IDC and is now managing the global IDC Center of Excellence based out of Bangalore in the role of a general manager. In his new role, he is leading teams which serve various strategic business units of IDC. He continues to also support the IDC India business episodically.
IDC’s vice president and general manager– South Asia Jaideep Mehta said, “We are delighted by Balaji’s decision to join our team. He brings significant heft and gravitas to the research organization. Under his leadership, we plan to accelerate our product development cycles and bring new innovations to the market, faster. Balaji is a real talent and will add further depth and heft to the research and advisory team at IDC India. I take this opportunity to wish him every success and welcome him to the team. I also take this opportunity to wish Venu Reddy well in his new role, and thank him for his invaluable contribution to the development of IDC in India and South Asia.”
MAM
Gurpreet Singh named President of DishTV Alumni Network
Former Dish TV executive to lead community building and collaboration.
MUMBAI: Back to the dish, but this time it’s about connections, not channels Gurpreet Singh is returning to familiar territory with a new mandate that swaps subscribers for relationships. Singh has been appointed President of the DishTV Alumni Network, a move aimed at strengthening ties among former employees and building a more engaged professional community around the Dish TV ecosystem. The initiative reflects a growing trend among large organisations to formalise alumni networks as platforms for collaboration, mentorship and business opportunities.
The appointment draws on Singh’s deep-rooted history with Dish TV, where he held multiple leadership roles over nearly a decade. As National Business Head between June 2019 and September 2020, he oversaw profit and loss as well as operations, managing revenues of Rs 6,000 crore and leading a team of around 1,250 employees across the country. His tenure included working alongside two regional business heads and 16 circle heads, underscoring the scale of operations he handled.
Prior to that, Singh served as Executive Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue from 2016 to 2019, and earlier as Senior Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue. He also briefly led international operations as Country Head for Sri Lanka, further expanding his exposure across markets.
His broader career spans leadership roles across telecom and consumer businesses, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer at Bharti Airtel’s Malawi operations, senior leadership roles at Reliance Communications, and earlier positions at Hindustan Sanitaryware and Kodak India, where he spent over a decade.
In his new role, Singh is expected to focus on reconnecting former employees, fostering collaboration, and building a structured alumni ecosystem that leverages shared experience and industry networks. As companies increasingly recognise the long-term value of their extended workforce, the DishTV Alumni Network appears set to turn nostalgia into a strategic asset, one connection at a time.
