Dish Hires Ex-Telstra Exec Kannan Alagappan as CTO
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Dish Network hired Kannan Alagappan, who has held technology leadership roles with telecom and cloud services providers including Australia’s Telstra, Reliance’s Jio and Rackspace, as SVP and chief technology officer.
Alagappan assumes the CTO role after the exit of former chief technology officer Vivek Khemka in August 2018 to join John Malone’s Liberty Latin America. Alagappan reports to president and CEO Erik Carlson. He
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As CTO, Alagappan will lead Dish Technologies, the group responsible for setting the company’s technology strategy, and oversees the pay-TV provider’s software and hardware engineering initiatives as well as broadcast and satellite operations.
“Kannan is an incredible strategist, technologist and an inspiring leader,” Carlson said in a statement. “As Dish continues to deliver the best technology experience for our customers, and as we pursue our entry into the wireless industry, I’m confident Kannan’s vision and leadership will prove transformative for our organization.”
From January 2016 to June 2018, Alagappan served as CTO and head of technology for Australian telecommunications provider Telstra. He’s credited with changing Telstra’s approach to product development and software engineering by establishing software-engineering centers across the globe.
Prior to Telstra, Alagappan served as SVP of data center, cloud and product engineering at Jio, an Indian mobile operator owned by Reliance Industries. At Jio, Alagappan was responsible for creating cloud data centers across India, setting up cloud operations to manage over 100 million customers.
Alagappan also served as VP, strategy and transformation services of cloud-computing company Rackspace. Throughout his career, he has worked as a technology consultant for telecom companies including Comcast, T-Mobile and Dish.
Alagappan holds a master of science degree in computer science from the University of Arkansas and a bachelor’s engineering degree in computer science from Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu, India.
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