Microsoft today announced the appointment of Amit Chatterjee as the new Managing Director of its development center in India as Srini Koppolu, Corporate Vice President and Managing Director, is leaving in September 2010 after spending 21 years with the company. Amit, who is the General Manager for the Visual Studio Test and Lab Management team at Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC), has been with Microsoft for the past 22 years and will now expand his responsibilities to lead MSIDC. He will continue to be based out of Hyderabad and will report to S. Somasegar, Senior Vice President, Developer Division, Microsoft Corporation.
Making the announcement, Somasegar, said: “Srini’s contributions to Microsoft’s growth in India and global R&D are immeasurable. After spending nine years in Redmond, Srini returned to India to set up MSIDC in 1998, driven by his passion for the country and his faith in its talent. Starting with only 20 people working on two products, he grew the center over the past 12 years to over 1500 people working on 20 product groups. Under his tenure, MSIDC has driven end to end engineering of several Microsoft products, in addition to doing shared development work for our other major products. The innovative work done by MSIDC teams has contributed to the filing of over 270 patents for Microsoft Corp in the past five years. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
Reflecting back on his 21 years with Microsoft, Srini remarked: “It has been an extremely satisfying and fulfilling experience to contribute to a company which truly impacts billions of lives across the world. The experience of creating and growing the center over the last 12 years has been intense and magical. Many people played significant roles in helping build this great organization. Now that India is firmly put on Microsoft’s global development map, the time has come to pursue my passion to contribute to education and the startup ecosystem. Having spent some time working with Soma and the organization to identify the right leader, I am super confident that Amit and the leadership team will take MSIDC to greater heights. With a feeling of great pride, achievement and optimism, I bid farewell to this incredible company.”
Welcoming Amit, Somasegar added: “Amit’s appointment is a testament to our leadership talent here in India. Amit brings with him an excellent understanding of Microsoft, our product development lifecycles and an appreciation of the unique aspects of distributed and shared development. We are confident that he will continue to grow and build on the great innovation and product development culture of the development teams here.”
Amit, as the MD of MSIDC, will be a member of the leadership team of Microsoft India and will work with Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman and Corporate Vice President, Microsoft India, to leverage the combined capabilities and assets of Microsoft here in India to enhance our overall image, develop talent and energize the IT ecosystem in India.
Commenting on his appointment, Amit said: “I am very excited by this additional responsibility. MSIDC is an important part of Microsoft’s product innovation and development lifecycle and I look forward to working with my peers and colleagues in the leadership team to grow and nurture our talent amidst the unique innovation culture of Microsoft.”
Amit, who is currently the General Manager of the Visual Studio Test & Lab Management team at MSIDC, has been with Microsoft since 1988. Like Srini, he spent the first few years of his stint in Microsoft at Redmond, as a key member of the Windows team that shipped Windows 2.1, 3.0, 3.1 and '95, after which he joined the Direct Show and Direct X Media product teams. He joined MSIDC in 1998 and has had a variety of roles including being the General Manager for the Windows Technologies group. He took over as the General Manager of the Visual Studio Test Business at MSIDC in the year 2007.
Amit completed his Master’s in Computer Science from IIT Kharagpur after graduating in Electronics from the same university. He received the President of India Gold Medal for the ‘Best Graduating Engineer’ in 1984 and the Technology Alumni Association Gold Medal for topping the post graduate class of 1985. He was recently conferred the IIT Kharagpur Distinguished Alumnus Award 2010.
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