AWS India & South Asia Head Puneet Chandok Steps Down

Puneet Chandok, president of commercial business, Amazon Web Services (AWS) India and South Asia has decided to step down from his position at the compnay.

His resignation will be effective from August 31, 2023, AWS India confirmed. “We thank Puneet for his contribution and leadership over the last four years and wish him all the best,” it said in a statement.

Vaishali Kasture, head of enterprise, mid-market and global businesses, AWS India and South Asia is taking on the role of interim leader of commercial business, AWS India and South Asia effective immediately.

Chandok, during his tenure at AWS, worked with enterprises, digital businesses, startups and SMBs to help them reduce technical debt, bring in agility, and innovate.

Prior to joining AWS, he held leadership roles at McKinsey & Co. and IBM Global Services. As a partner for McKinsey, he led relationships with enterprise clients, technology providers, private equity firms, and helped grow the technology and digital practices in Asia for the global consulting firm.

Chandok has worked with AWS at a time when cloud technology saw massive adoption in India. AWS India recently said that it will invest INR 1.056 Lakh Cr ($12.7 Bn) by 2030 to upgrade and scale up cloud infrastructure in the country to meet the growing demand.

The company said the investment in the data centre infrastructure will support around 1.32 Lakh full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in Indian businesses each year, across positions including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and others.

It is to be noted that AWS has been embroiled in a tussle with the tax department in India over an alleged tax payment of INR 549 Cr on fees earned from its cloud computing services.

The Income Tax department raised a demand of INR 190.85 Cr for 2014-15 and INR 358.27 Cr for 2016-17 under section 147 of the IT Act, which did not involve any penalty. The tax department also sent a notice to AWS at the end of January. However, AWS called the decision ‘baseless’ and planned to contest it.

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