Shantanu Mukherjee returns to Vodafone Idea after over five years at Reliance Jio, where he led customer growth, revenue management, broadband lifecycle management and key 5G commercial initiatives.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) has appointed former Reliance Jio executive Shantanu Mukherjee as Executive Vice President and Head of Partnerships & Growth, Digital. Mukherjee returns to the telecom operator after previously holding senior consumer business leadership roles at the company before spending more than five years at Jio.
Mukherjee announced his return to Vodafone Idea in a LinkedIn post, describing the move as “coming back home” after his stint at Reliance Jio.
The appointment brings back an executive with experience across customer growth, revenue management, digital engagement, 5G commercialisation and telecom product strategy at two of India’s largest telecom operators.
At Vodafone Idea, Mukherjee will lead partnerships and growth initiatives across the company’s digital business, an area that is becoming important as telecom operators look beyond connectivity and focus on customer engagement, digital services and monetisation.
Before rejoining Vi, Mukherjee served as senior vice president and head of customer lifecycle and revenue management for Jio’s Home Business, where he was responsible for customer lifecycle, engagement and revenue management across JioHome’s broadband and entertainment business serving over 20 million subscribers.
According to his profile, the role involved driving customer retention, product adoption and revenue growth across digital and physical channels while working on AI-driven customer intelligence and automation initiatives.
He also led digital engagement innovations across channels including WhatsApp, RCS and the MyJio application as part of efforts to scale assisted and self-service customer support.
Prior to that, Mukherjee served as senior vice president and head of growth Segments during Jio’s 5G rollout, where he helped shape customer value propositions, pricing architecture and go-to-market strategies for 5G services.
The profile states that he played a role in the commercial prioritisation of Jio’s 5G rollout across over 7,000 cities and towns and helped drive customer adoption during the early phases of the deployment.
Familiar face returns to Vodafone Idea
Mukherjee is not a new entrant to Vodafone Idea.
Before moving to Jio in 2021, he spent more than three years as EVP and head of consumer products and services at Vodafone Idea, where he was responsible for consumer revenue strategy, product portfolio management, customer experience and long-term commercial planning.
During that period, he also played a role in the commercial integration of Vodafone and Idea following the merger that created Vodafone Idea.
The profile notes that he worked on unifying products, pricing and customer propositions across the combined organisation while managing consumer-facing business operations.
The appointment comes as telecom operators focus on customer monetisation, digital engagement and ecosystem partnerships alongside network investments.
Mukherjee’s recent experience spans several areas that are becoming central to telecom growth strategies, including broadband expansion, customer lifecycle management, AI-led analytics, digital customer engagement and 5G commercialisation.
His return also comes at a time when operators are exploring new digital services and partnership models to drive customer growth and improve user engagement beyond traditional voice and data offerings.
There is a growing importance of digital growth, customer analytics, AI-enabled engagement and partnership-led business models in the telecom ecosystem as operators look for new avenues of revenue expansion in an increasingly competitive market.
