Bharti Group IT Director Jai Menon quits

Jai Menon, Bharti Group's Director for Innovation and IT, has quit amidst reports of alleged violation of the company's code of conduct.

While the company said he "exited" on Wednesday without giving any reasons, Menon said he has quit to pursue research and innovation in technology from January.

Menon, who was also the Group CIO across all businesses, joined Bharti in 2002 as Corporate Director and has been credited with the launch of Airtel’s enterprise business.

"It (exit) is part of my life plan. In January, I will be turning 50 and want to pursue research and innovation in technology," Menon told PTI when asked about reasons for his exit from the company.

Asked about reports of financial irregularities being linked to his exit from the company, Menon said: "These are purely speculative and baseless."

He said the reason for his leaving was that he wanted to go back to create intellectual property (IP) and do research in deep technology based out of India.

"In my 40s, I was engaged with telecom, 30s was devoted to IT, when I was based in US and in my 20s, I was doing research in mathematics, so this is part of my plan to pursue research in technology in my 50s," Menon said.

Menon started his career at IBM’s Watson Labs, USA and rose to become an IBM executive Director in Software Group leading worldwide research-to-market business for rich media.

He has also worked as Corporate Officer and Executive VP at AT&T (formerly BellSouth), USA, managing growth businesses and strategic alliances.