New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS): OneWeb, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network owned by the UK government, Bharti Global and other strategic investors, has announced the appointment of Srikanth Balachandran as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Balachandran joined from Bharti Global, where he was CFO since October 2018 and prior to that, was CFO of Bharti Airtel for seven years.

Under his financial stewardship, Airtel engaged in some intense merger and acquisition, and grew its customer base five-fold to become the world's third largest mobile operator in subscriber numbers and expanded its operations to 18 countries, said a company statement.

He was closely associated with Airtel's launch and scaling up of the satellite TV business in India and the rapid expansion of Airtel's Global Business across the globe.

Comments Neil Masterson, CEO of OneWeb: "Having had the opportunity to work with Srikanth in his most recent role as CFO of Bharti Global, the team at OneWeb has seen first-hand the wealth of experience and expertise he will bring to his new position at OneWeb. He will assume responsibility for helping us deliver our ambitious business plan, securing additional funding and establishing high standards of governance."

Srikanth Balachandran started his career as a management trainee at Unilever, where he spent 23 years across leadership roles in finance, supply chain and HR in India and the UK.

Balachandran said: "OneWeb has an unparalleled opportunity to create value for communities, businesses and governments. Our plans to create a telecom network in space will be game-changing and will help realise OneWeb's vision of 'internet access everywhere, for everyone'."