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Sarvam AI names former Google Cloud India head Sashikumar Sreedharan president and chief business officer
The Bengaluru AI company says over 100 enterprises and government institutions are building on its full-stack offering as it brings in a cloud veteran to run the business.
Bengaluru based Sarvam AI has appointed Sashikumar Sreedharan, most recently Managing Director for India at Google Cloud, as its President and Chief Business Officer, the company said in a blog post on November 9, 2026. He also joins Sarvam's board of directors. The Economic Times reported the announcement the same day, and Times of India and CNBC-TV18 had reported the hire in October, with Times of India calling it the company's first high profile C-suite hire.
Sarvam said Sreedharan will lead its business across enterprises and government and widen its work with digital native companies, developers and partners. His remit also covers marketing, finance, forward deployed engineering, service delivery and commercial operations, according to the blog post and the Economic Times. In effect, Sarvam is handing one executive the commercial side of a company that has so far been known mostly for its research and models.
Sreedharan brings more than three decades in technology businesses, the company said. Before Google Cloud India he ran Microsoft India's enterprise business as Managing Director for over five years. CNBC-TV18 reported that he served as Chief Operating Officer of Google Cloud APAC from September 2023 to July 2025 before taking the India role, and Times of India noted he led the expansion of Google Cloud's sovereign cloud capabilities in India for organisations with strict data control needs.
The timing matters because Sarvam says more than 100 enterprises and government institutions are now building with its full-stack offering, and it frames its pitch around enterprises owning their AI, with data, models and agents kept inside the organisation. In the blog post, Sreedharan says India should be a maker of the intelligence the world runs on. The company has been shipping models for Indian languages, including Sarvam Vision 2.1 for documents in English and 22 Indian languages, CNBC-TV18 reported.
What to watch: the 100 plus customer figure is the company's own number, and Sarvam has not shared revenue. The real test of this hire is whether sovereign AI interest from government and large enterprises turns into large, repeatable contracts that can fund its research ambitions.
