India’s Tata Communications has named Vinod Kumar, director on its Board, as the new Managing Director and CEO of the company.

He replaces Srinath Narasimhan, who has been appointed as the MD and CEO at Tata Teleservices Ltd. and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd. These changes will be effective 1 February 2011.

Srinath will continue to be a non-Executive Director on the Board of Tata Communications and some of its subsidiary/associate companies such as Neotel.

Kumar joined Tata Communications in April 2004, and was closely associated with the acquisitions of TGN and Teleglobe and assumed responsibility as Managing Director of the company’s international operations.

He was promoted as the COO, and currently manages the Global Data Business Unit as well as the Engineering and Operations functions.

Kumar has been at the forefront of Tata Communications’s shift away from traditional network services towards managed services and recently, cloud computing.

Kumar said, "Tata Communications’ vision of a new world of communications resonates well with what our customers are seeking in the current, rapidly changing environment. It will be a great honour for me to lead the highly capable team at Tata Communications towards this vision."

Srinath joined Tata Communications (then known as VSNL) in 2002 as director (operations) when the Tata Group was selected as the strategic partner at the company. He was appointed as the Managing Director & CEO in February 2007.