Som Mittal to quit HP in December

CMN Correspondent

BANGALORE, INDIA: Nasscom president-designate Som Mittal will quit Hewlett-Packard (HP) in December this year to take up his new assignment.

“It’s a planned transition and my last day at HP would be December 31,” said Mittal, who heads the services business of HP for the Asia-Pacific and Japan region.

Mittal, who was named the president of Nasscom early this month, will take over the president’s office of Nasscom from the outgoing chief, Kiran Karnik in January 2008.

An alumnus of IIT Kanpur and IIM-Ahmedabad, Mittal has corporate experience in industries ranging from manufacturing through automobiles to IT. He had earlier worked at Larsen & Turbo, Escorts, SRF, Wipro and Compaq before joining Digital.

Though a metallurgical engineer from IIT-Kanpur by training, IT has turned out to be Mittal's true calling. In Wipro Infotech, he established the peripherals business that in five years grew to over Rs 100 crore.

The peripherals manufacturing factory he set up in technical collaboration with Seiko-Epson was the first in the group to achieve ISO 9000 certification and also the first unit to be nominated for the Rajiv Gandhi Quality Award.

He was instrumental in turning around the fortunes of Digital in India till it was acquired by Compaq and subsequently HP. Mittal was Nasscom chairman, CII chairman, MAIT president, member of Karnataka chief minister’s Task Force, Governing Council member of IIIT-Bangalore and founder member of Board of Education Standards.

Mittal was appointed senior vice president of HP Services for Asia Pacific and Japan in October 2006.