The Mecca of Professionals on the Internet, Social Networking website, LinkedIn has finally setup their base in India. Ex-MySpace Hari V Krishnan has been appointed as the first country head for India.
LinkedIn sees India as one of their biggest markets with 3.4 million of their total 52 million members coming from the country. Also the rate of new additions is about 10,000 per day, making India one of the major contributor to the compay’s growth. Krishnan’s vision as a country head will focus on LinkedIn’s business model comprising user subscriptions, ad sales and enterprise software licensing for the Indian market.
Quoting Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn on the appointment, “India is one of our fastest growing markets. We help employees manage their brands and we see user interest (from individuals and corporates alike) growing significantly. Hari’s addition to the LinkedIn team will not only help us better serve our membership and customers on a local basis, but will also help accelerate our goal to connect the world’s professionals. He is the first country manager in Asia Pacific region for us and reinforces our commitment towards India.”
Hari, 31, is a Business Administration Grad from the INSEAD Business School, Fountainbleau, France. Prior to LinkedIn Hari held the top job at MySpace India which he had taken over last year. Hari brings a huge Experience of about 10 long years in the Industry, having held Significant Posts like VP at Travelguru, Yahoo! India and Cisco. He has also Co-founded Stylkist.com with some of his colleagues at INSEAD.
In a post written by him on the LinkedIn Blog after the induction, he says “In the coming years I believe talent, professionalism, collaboration and networking will play an increasingly important role in sustaining India’s position in the global economy. The years ahead will also be full of great learning and growth for India’s professionals.”
LinkedIn is one of the most used platforms by professionals in India, with High volume searches coming from here. The main Member communities of LinkedIn comes from Software Industry(about 350,000) followed by Telecom Sector(about 100,000). IT Giants in India are major contributors with 38,771 TCS employees, around 30,000 Infosys employees and 28,634 Wipro workers are members of LinkedIn.
The major reason why LinkedIn is favored by Indian Majors is the features being offered, penetration and the level of professionalism. Also as a pleasant change, Recruiters have started using Linked as a medium to hire new employees, as this is, an easy and a very economical platform to converse. The setting up of India shop, proves that company wants to bank on these new trends of Indian Market and use it as an epicenter to conquer professional social media space in South Asia. We at WATBlog wish LinkedIn Good Luck on their future plans for India.
