BlackBerry’s Lalvani joins Qualcomm

MUMBAI, INDIA: Former BlackBerry veteran Sunil Lalvani has joined Qualcomm as Vice President and President for the company’s India operations.

He replaces Avneesh Agrawal, Senior Vice President and President, Qualcomm India and South Asia, who resigned to start his own venture.

Lalvani, who served most recently as managing director of India and SAARC of BlackBerry, will report directly to Cristiano Amon, executive vice president and co-president, Qualcomm Technologies.

At BlackBerry, he was drove differentiated solutions for consumers and enterprise customers.

Lalvani, who has over 20 years of experience in sales, business development, strategic planning and business operations across the IT and telecom sectors, was also instrumental in leading engagement with carrier partners and ISV’s in India, to drive uptake of BlackBerry’s services portfolio in the region.

He has also worked at EMC, Nokia, Cisco Systems and SITA Equant Network (now Orange Business Services).

Meanwhile, under Agrawal’s leadership, Qualcomm nurtured the local ecosystem including 3G smart phone adoption and 4G LTE deployments.

He also played a key role in the company’s key technology initiatives including leading the development of Qualcomm’s first WCDMA and LTE chipsets.