Sanjay Dhawan appointed president and COO of KKR and Sequoia company, Aricent

Mumbai: Full-service, full-spectrum communications software company Aricent today announced the appointment of Sanjay Dhawan as president and chief operating officer (COO). Dhawan brings to his position more than 23 years'' experience in the communications technology industry.

Prior to Aricent, Dhawan was chairman, CEO and co-founder of Inkra Networks, where he helped the company to define the virtual networking market segment through its line of virtual data center technologies. Before starting Inkra, he was vice president of business development at Netopia, a leader in DSL access products, where he is credited with fuelling rapid growth by focusing on sales to service providers in Europe and Asia. Dhawan joined Netopia when it acquired StarNet Technologies, a pioneer in voice-over-DSL technology, which he co-founded and led as its president and CEO.

Since joining Aricent as chief strategy officer in 2006, Dhawan has overseen several business units and delivered record-breaking financial results. In his new role as president and COO, Dhawan will steer Aricent''s multiple business units, sales organization, strategic business initiatives and numerous corporate functions.

Dhawan holds a masters of science degree in electrical engineering from the UK''s Brunel University and a Bachelor of Science degree in electronics and communications from REC Kurukshetra.

Owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Sequoia Capital and Flextronics International Ltd., Aricent has more than 350 clients worldwide, including Airtel, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Inmarsat, Juniper, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone.