xiaomi: Xiaomi appoints new India head in Jain’s place – Times of India

NEW DELHI: At a time when it faces multiple government probes for financial irregularities and other doubtful transactions, Chinese phone major Xiaomi has replaced its embattled former India MD Manu Kumar Jain with a Hong Kong-born executive as part of a larger organisational rejig as the company re-invents itself in a country, which is its largest outside home China.
The new India head Alvin Tse, who carries the designation of India general manager against Jain’s position of India MD, holds a British passport, and has past experience of working in Beijing for Xiaomi and other brands. Tse is Xiaomi’s global founding team member and a former GM of Xiaomi Indonesia. Jain had been the face of Xiaomi in India since the brand started operations in 2014, but has been under regulatory scrutiny of late due to heightened investigative activities around operations. Xiaomi has been accused of a variety of financial irregularities, which led to raids by the I-T department, apart from being directed to take down certain apps after it was suspected that its phones were sending data of Indian users to China surreptitiously.

Jain is understood to have moved his base to Dubai as a ‘global VP’ of the company, but the movement had been done in a hush-hush manner, quite uncharacteristic for the corporate honcho who was most active on social media platforms, with company announcements and personal posts. Jain — who is understood to have been grilled by the ED recently — also made a reference around his current job profile and location in a Twitter post on Friday where he put the press release around the organisational rejig. “Many of you have asked me about my current role. Hope this clarifies. I moved abroad one year ago to assume a global role within the group. Exciting new journey.
Congratulations to Alvin,” he said. Sources say the investigative heat in India had put pressure on the senior leadership of Xiaomi. It was facing questions on many charges, such as, why its operations were in losses, despite its revenues going up exponentially.
“After seven years in India, last year Manu Kumar Jain transitioned to a global role as group VP and is currently responsible for international strategy, including international marketing and PR. Since the transition of Jain, Xiaomi India leadership team, that is, Muralikrishnan B, chief operating officer, Raghu Reddy, chief business officer, and Sameer BS Rao, CFO, have been leading the India business fairly independently and will continue to be a strong driving force behind the brand,” the company said in a statement.