Mr Rajendra Pawar, Chairman and co-founder of NIIT Technologies, has been appointed the new Chairman of Nasscom's (National Association of Software and Services Companies) executive council for the year 2011-12.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tata Consultancy Services, Mr N. Chandrasekaran, will be the Vice-Chairman for the year.

Succeeds Harsh Manglik

Mr Pawar succeeds Mr Harsh Manglik (Chairman and Managing Director of Accenture), who was the Chairman last fiscal. Mr Pawar takes on his new role from today.

“Nasscom will continue to facilitate and collaborate and support the industry's growth and achieve its vision outlined for 2020. It will broaden its role entailing greater collaboration across various industry players, governments and markets,” Mr Pawar said in a press statement.

Mr Pawar is also a member of the National Council on Skill Development, which is chaired by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. He has also served on the Prime Minister's National Task force.

Mr Chandrasekaran has been with TCS with 24 years and has been at the helm of several strategic transitions there since 2002 when he took over the role as head of global sales.

Mr Pawar and Mr Chandrasekaran are taking over at a time when the industry is growing at a fast clip. However, there are still challenges with respect to protectionist measures in overseas geographies as reflected by the recent changes in the visa norms of the US, the UK and Australia etc.

Moreover, the industry is now facing another problem associated with growth: non-availability of skilled talent.

Two pillars

“To further sustain this growth, India, and specially the industry, will have to focus on two important pillars of the economic development – Skills of its workforce and SMEs. There is a need of greater focus on the ongoing development of specialised skills and capabilities, with the objective of helping increase employability of the current talent pool, by means of skill development across all tiers of the pyramid,” said Mr Pawar

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