Vikram Sinha: Telco Merger Playbook, AI Bets & The Risk Most CEOs Avoid – E586
"And personally, of late, I've been spending a lot of time on AI. I believe AI plus 5G—which needs low latency—can solve a lot of problems. Think of it: if I can have a personal assistant as an agent who helps me on every step, a personal nurse who understands me and gives me proactive guidance, every child will have a personal tutor as an agent. My two decades of learning in terms of all the evolution of G, we were too focused on speed. Speed can only do so much. Yes, we saw a lot of things which were not possible earlier, and that got started with 3G, but it completely got demonstrated on 4G. The 5G potential will get unlocked now, which is AI plus 5G." - Vikram Sinha, CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison
"The key learning which I got is, if you make mistakes, also be honest and upfront. Audit is not to catch you; audit is to improve your own mistake. So there is a difference between mistake and integrity. I think I keep teaching all my employees that it is okay to make mistakes, so don't mix mistakes with integrity. And because I was very honest, I was upfront, I was not hiding anything, it was categorized as a mistake. If I would have tried to make up something, it would have been an integrity issue, and I would have lost my job." - Vikram Sinha, CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison
"Personally, the most brave decision I took was to accept the assignment of a merger. The moment I was told, I was excited, but when I spoke to a few of my close friends, everyone told me that it was a recipe for disaster. Most of the CEOs who had taken this on lost their job in 12 to 18 months, maximum two years, because telco mergers—if you go back in history—close to 100% were failures. There wasn’t any example of success. And that is what I started in 2022. People supported me, my family supported me, and my team. I have to say, now we have become one. We looked at each other as a management team—it has been three years now—and we said we have two choices: one, to become history, or two, to create history. Let's work towards creating history. So it’s mind over matter. We started with that mindset." - Vikram Sinha, CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison
Vikram Sinha, CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, speaks with Jeremy Au about his personal journey, the power of distribution, and why AI is not just another wave of telecom innovation. They retrace his career from selling mobile plans to leading a successful merger, discuss why distribution is still the biggest driver of growth in emerging markets, and unpack how AI must be localized, inclusive, and protected from bad actors. Vikram explains why telcos should stop blaming regulators, focus on customer experience, and build sovereign infrastructure to stay competitive. He shares how his leadership is shaped by integrity, purpose, and prioritizing people over process even when facing fear and uncertainty.