Circles Global, the tech company in the global telco industry, today announced the appointment of four senior newly created roles - Lawrence Corbett as Chief Operating Officer for the group; Thomas Lee as Chief Revenue Officer for its B2B/SaaS offering to telcos; Nelson Allen as Vice President of Growth for its own B2C/consumer business; and Saurabh Ohri as Vice President for the  B2B/SaaS offering to telcos.

This year, Circles has set its sights on expanding into additional global markets including Asia and Europe, while deepening its success in its existing markets. By bolstering its senior leadership team, it has set itself up for the next stage of growth.

Lawrence Corbett will take the helm as Chief Operating Officer for the group. Corbett will lead strategic operations across both B2C and B2B operations, overseeing resource coordination and implementing optimal operational processes to support the company’s exciting global expansion plans. 

Corbett is a four-time COO and international telco executive with more than 25 years of experience. He also brings deep telco operations expertise from his stints at Virgin Mobile (Australia and UK) and Bullitt Group.

Working alongside Corbett is the new Vice President of Growth for Circles’ consumer operations, Nelson Allen. Allen will lead Growth for digital telcos under Circles.Life, as well as the Regional Marketing function including brand development, customer acquisition and strategic partnerships.

Allen has worked extensively across Asian markets and was most recently Chief Growth Officer at fintech platform GoBear.

Circles plans to take its proprietary CXOS telco operating system to additional markets in Asia and Europe, where it can help telcos launch digital brands amid a wave of digital transformation.  

To support its growth ambitions, Circles has appointed Thomas Lee as Chief Revenue Officer for the telco SaaS offering, and Saurabh Ohri as Vice President, Sales for its telco SaaS covering Asia-Pacific markets. As Chief Revenue Officer, Lee will lead global sales and marketing for Circles’ telco SaaS offering. His priorities are to set the organisation for a hyper-growth journey, establish a clear vision for the market, disrupt the industry and help telcos to accelerate their digital transformation.  

Having spent over 20 years at Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where he held various sales and leadership roles, in multiple regions and countries. Lee brings expertise in B2B enterprise tech and is well-versed in the areas of Cloud, IoT, AI, DevOps, Hybrid IT, Security and more.  

As Vice President, Sales for the telco SaaS offering, Ohri will operate as the owner for defining and executing the sales strategy for Asia-Pacific markets, driving topline growth and adding new logos. He will also work to cultivate new business opportunities and expand the B2B sales pipeline while sharpening customer value propositions for specific markets.

Ohri brings close to 18 years of experience in telco and enterprise tech. He was most recently the Head of Global Sales - Mobility & Automotive IoT for Tata Communications.  

Other recent hires include Fortune 500 HR leader Stephanie Nash, previously from Microsoft, BHP and Allergan; Silicon Valley veteran Dhanush Hetti, ex-CTO at Venmo/PayPal; and Mak Chee Kiong, ex-CFO at Singtel Group Digital Life, among others.

“We’re excited to welcome four new top-class additions to our senior leadership team at Circles as we build the best leadership team around and continue our rapid expansion,” said Rameez Ansar, Co-Founder of Circles.  

With its global team now comprising over 500 staff across Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and India, Circles is doubling down on efforts to expand its Singapore core of tech and innovation talent. While staff numbers in its Singapore home base have grown two-fold since 2019, the company is looking to boost headcount thereby at least another 25 per cent, including key hires for tech and “tech-lite” roles such as software engineers, product managers and digital marketers across new and existing business lines. Circles Global recently concluded a $5M ESOP buyback for employees.