Jai Menon, chief information officer (CIO) at Bharti Enterprises Group, has stepped down from his position after more than a decade-old stint with the group to go back to technology research and create intellectual property and technology, media reports said.
“I spent my forties consuming IT in the telcom sector, my thirties creating and innovating IT through IBM in the US and my twenties in deep core mathematics research. In my fifties, I want to go back to deep technology research and create IP (intellectual property) and technologies rather than as a consumer of technology,” Menon told Mint.
He told the paper that he is looking at a range of areas for innovation of technology, including smart grids and infrastructure, medicine and healthcare, cloud computing and so on.
Menon, who is turning 50 in January next year, had joined Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom services provider, in 2002 as CIO and corporate director for information technology and became group CIO in 2007.
Menon had played a key role in various deals, including Bharti Airtel’s partnership with Google and other technology companies across the globe.
Menon started his career at IBM’s TJ Watson Research Labs, before rising up the ranks to hold the position of executive director of the company’s software group.
Then he joined AT&T as chief technology officer for IT across all lines of businesses and soon after became executive vice president and corporate officer, product innovation (marketing) at the company. However, he resigned in 2002 and returned to India to join Bharti Airtel.
“One of the reasons I moved back to India was to contribute to the national development of the country through telecoms like Bharti (Airtel). Now I would like to contribute by creating technologies and IP for the country,” Menon told the business daily.
Menon did his graduation from IIT Delhi and post graduation and doctorate in computer science from Cornell University in the US.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
