News: Vistara to have new strategy officer

Leadership

Vistara to have new strategy officer

The current Chief Strategy Officer will continue on his role as a Chief Commercial Officer at the airline.
Vistara to have new strategy officer

Vistara has appointed Vinod Kannan as the company’s new Chief Commercial Officer. Kannan is expected to start his role in Vistara from June.

Kannan, who is the Chief Commercial Officer at Scoot, a no-frills carrier operated by Singapore Airlines will replace Sanjiv Kapoor. Kapoor is the former SpiceJet executive who is currently working with Vistara as the Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer. After Kannan immersion into the role, Kapoor will continue on his role as Chief Commercial Officer with the airlines. 

Kannan’s appointment comes at a time when the airline plans to launch its international operations. On his appointment, Vistara shared a statement saying, “As Vistara accelerates its growth and prepares to take the next leap in its journey of becoming a global brand, certain changes have been introduced in the leadership structure. Strategy and commercial are cornerstones of any airline’s business, and these two areas will be bolstered to ensure focus on key priorities.”

According to reports, the airline is splitting the chief commercial and strategy officer role so that each role could now get more focus, especially at a time when the airline plans its foray into international operations.

Kannan will look at the strategy, which includes network planning, alliances, and airline partnerships, while Kapoor will look at the others like distribution, pricing, and revenue management, sales, marketing, customer experience, inflight services, catering, frequent flyer program, cargo, etc.

Kannan, who joined Singapore Airlines as a direct marketing executive in 2001, has been a general manager with the airline at Indonesia and Italy before being appointed as a vice president in 2016.

He has an electrical engineering degree from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and an executive MBA from UCLA NUS.

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Topics: Leadership, Appointments

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