LinkedIn India appoints Hetal Sonpal as director, strategic sales, India

Sonpal's mandate is to identify and build strategic relationships in the marketing and recruitment ecosystems.

LinkedIn has further strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Hetal Sonpal as director, strategic sales, for India. The business-related social networking site claims to have more than 135 million members worldwide, and over 12 million members in India currently.

Sonpal, with over 13 years of experience scaling world-class sales organisations, will work closely with LinkedIn Marketing Solutions and LinkedIn Hiring Solutions. He will focus on building and strengthening relationships with key clients, and will oversee the execution of strategic deals to help accelerate the growth of LinkedIn in India. He will be based in Mumbai, and will report to Hari V Krishnan, country manager, LinkedIn India.

Speaking on the new appointment, Krishnan states that LinkedIn, which has had operations in India for over two years now, has emerged as a platform of choice for recruiters and brands which seek to engage with an influential and highly educated audience. "We have built a strong business across India with high quality sales and marketing professionals. Sonpal's addition to the leadership team will add value and scale to our operations," says Krishnan.

Sonpal joins LinkedIn from Microsoft Corporation where he served as lead, telecom alliances. Prior to that, he worked with Wipro for more than 11 years and rose to leadership positions, including being regional head for North India. During his tenure with Wipro, he also led Wipro's sales team in Japan for over seven years, and was instrumental in the growth of Wipro's business with some of the largest technology and consumer electronics customers in Japan including Toshiba, Cannon, Ricoh, and Clarion.