Shyam Mardikar with the CTO Of the Year -2023 Award

Shyam Prabhakar Mardikar (born 23 March 1971) is The Group Chief Technology Officer - Mobility at Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (India), an Indian multinational

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

services company, headquartered at Reliance Corporate Park, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, it operates a national LTE and 5G network with coverage across all 22 telecom circles.

Personal

Shyam Prabhakar Mardikar was born on 23 March 1971 in

Jabalpur Jabalpur, formerly Jubbulpore, is a city situated on the banks of Narmada River in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is the 3rd-largest urban agglomeration of the state and the 38th-largest of the country. Jabalpur is the administrative h ...

. His father was an

Indian Forest Service The Indian Forest Service (IFS) is the premier forest service of India. .The IFS is one of the three All India Services along with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) & the Indian Police Service (IPS). It was constituted in the year 1966 un ...

Officer of Madhya Pradesh Cadre. Shyam attended various schools in

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

including Holy Cross Convent in Raipur (now

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (; ) is a landlocked States and union territories of India, state in Central India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the List ...

), Miss Hill School in Gwalior and St Xavier's in Surguja (now

). He received his Bachelors in Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering from

Jabalpur Engineering College Jabalpur Engineering College (JEC) is an institute located in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is the oldest technical institution in central India and the 15th-oldest in India. It is the first institute of India to have started the Electron ...

in Jabalpur,

. Shyam is married to Jaishree Mardikar , who works for GAIL India limited. They have two sons, Shubham and Aniket.

Career Progression

Shyam started his career in 1994 with

C-DOT The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) is an Indian Government owned telecommunications technology development centre. It was established in 1984 with initial mandate of designing and developing Business telephone system, digital exc ...

(Centre for development of Telematics) as a software research engineer and was part of the software team upgrading the

switches to signalling system #7. In 1995, he joined the

Department of telecommunications The Department of Telecommunications, abbreviated to DoT, is a department of the Ministry of Communications of the executive branch of the Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union ...

as an

Indian Telecom Service The Indian Telecommunications Service ( भारतीय दूरसंचार सेवा), widely known as ITS, and earlier known as Telegraph Engineering Service Class I (TES Class I) is one of the Central Civil Services under Group 'A' ...

officer and held various operational and management positions across the country. In late 1990s, the Indian telecom sector was bursting with new growth aspects post liberalisation of telecom. Shyam moved out of DoT and joined

Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Telecommunications in India, telecommunications company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. ...

in 2001 as the head of network planning for their fixed line operations. He later ran the network services vertical of Airtel's mobile network and was the head of network engineering of integrated network entity of Airtel called the NSG. In 2010, he was also a member of

GSMA The GSM Association (GSMA) is a Nonprofit organization, non-profit trade association that represents the interests of mobile network operators worldwide. More than 750 mobile operators are full GSMA members and a further 400 companies in the bro ...

's executive management committee. Shyam moved out of

Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is an Indian multinational telecommunications company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, Airtel provides 5G, 4G and LTE Advanced ...

later in 2010 and joined

Lebara group Lebara is a telecommunications company providing services using the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business model in the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland and Australia. Lebara p ...

as The Chief Technology Officer. He was based out of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

; where he was responsible for implementation & execution of the Company's technology strategy and aligning the technology vision with the business strategy across its 7 countries. In 2012, Shyam came back to India in

as Chief of Strategy, Architecture and Engineering.In this role, Shyam was instrumental for transforming the network architecture to a next generation, mobile broad band enabled, data services centric network. He was also instrumental in driving the overall spectrum strategy to ensure sustaining Airtel's leadership position on the technology front and set the benchmark standards for the industry. From 2016 to 2018, he served as Chief Technology Officer of Mobile Networks for Airtel. Along with his role at

, Shyam also chaired the technology committee of

Cellular Operators Association of India The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) is an Indian non-governmental trade association and advocacy group focused mainly on telecommunications industry. COAI was constituted in 1995 as a registered, non-governmental society. As of 2 ...

. In 2018, Shyam moved out of

to join

Reliance Jio Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (d/b/a Jio) is an Indian telecommunications company and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, headquartered in Navi Mumbai. It operates a national LTE (telecommunication), LTE network with coverage across all 22 telecom ...

as President and Group CTO of mobility. In 2023, Shyam successfully led the fastest 5G roll out in the world, adding more than one million 5G cells for Reliance Jio in a span of 12 months.

Publications and Strategic Outlook

*2015 - Story of 3 Vs - predicting the evolution towards a digital life The story of 3 Vs

*2018 - SIM is the new socket - Highlighting the pervasiveness of digital sockets as the new age interfaces to all sectors of industry

Awards and Recognitions

*2023 - Financial Express visionary leadership recognition *2023 - CTO of the Year Award - ET Telecom *2023 - Ranked 1st on Top 30 CTOs of India - Startup Lane *2018 - CTO of the year - Voice and Data *2017 - CTO of the Year - Telecom Lead

Telecom Summit Presence

*The Brooklyn 6G Summit *VAS ASIA 2014 *LTE INDIA 2014 *TD-LTE Summit 2013 *4G World India Expo & Conference *Broadband Tech India 2013 *VAS Asia 2013 *VAS India 2010 *23rd Convergence India 2015 Expo *Vision 4G LTE Telecom Conclave *LTE India 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mardikar, Shyam Living people 1971 births People from Jabalpur Bharti Airtel