Hyderabad: Satyam Computer Services has appointed Prakash Challa as the new CEO and Sandeep Madan as the new COO of Nipuna Services, the BPO subsidiary of Satyam Computer Services.

Challa was appointed as COO of Nipuna in October 2003. However, since then Nipuna has grown in size and has added a significant number of clients and services to its portfolio.

B Rama Raju, managing director, Satyam said, "As CEO, Prakash Challa will be responsible for building Nipuna into one of the top providers of end-to-end BPO services to various industry sectors globally," he said.

According to the company, Challa will focus on ensuring that Nipuna's customers are provided with the value added services that they need, which will help them realise their business objectives and improve their competitive positioning. He will be based in Atlanta, USA.

Before joining Nipuna, Challa was with Satyam as senior vice president in the global solutions group and prior to that, he held several senior management positions in the information technology industry. While with IMR Global / CGI in US (since 1993), he held a number of senior management positions and was responsible for business development and operations.

Challa began his career with Wipro Information Technology in 1985 and later joined Tata Consultancy Services and held a number leadership positions in quality, information systems and technology planning groups. He has a Ph.D in software engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India.

Rama Raju also welcomed Sandeep Madan to the Satyam family and said, "With his rich knowledge and sound experience in managing the affairs of companies of global stature, we look forward to him engaging the same level of energy and intellect for the benefit of Nipuna," he said.

Prior to joining Nipuna, Madan was president of HeroITES, the BPO venture of the Hero Group. Under his leadership HeroITES grew from a 650 employee organization to a 1300+ employees in a very short period.

Madan's experience in the BPO/ITES industry covers GECIS (GE Capital International Services) and Capital One. At Capital One, as director - India operations, he led their back-office outsourcing initiatives in India, while at GECIS, he worked in client relationship/business development in Gurgaon and then moved to Hyderabad to set-up and lead GECIS's largest Service delivery unit. He also had additional responsibility for facilities, logistics and infrastructure at the GECIS Hyderabad site.

Madan has also held several senior management positions in the telecom and information technology industries. He has worked at AT&T India and HCL in diverse geographical and market environments and has a rich cross-functional exposure to sales, product management, marketing, customer support, logistics, etc.

An alumnus of IIT-Bombay, Mr. Madan completed his B.Tech in mechanical engineering in 1985. Subsequently, he has gone through several management and marketing programs including an intense short term Management Development Programme at XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Nipuna Services offers industry specific services like claims processing, policy issuance, and premium accounting etc to customers in the insurance and healthcare sector. It also offers front office services like contact centres for customer service, product support & technical help desk services as well as back-office processes in the areas of accounting, HR and other transaction intensive activities, including analytics and animation. Nipuna currently offers services in; insurance, healthcare and pharma; banking & financial services; manufacturing & automotive; telecom, media and publishing; transportation, logistics and travel and retail.