The Tata group has roped in Vijay Singh, former chief executive officer of Sony Music, to head the Tetley operations in the emerging markets. He has been appointed group commercial director (developing markets), Tetley UK, and will be based in London. Vijay Singh said: "My role will be to launch and establish the Tetley brand in developing markets in a phased manner. The regions identified for expansion include Russia, CIS, Middle East, China and Far East including India." Vijay Singh joined the Tata group on March 1, 2002.

For Singh, who had earlier worked with the Tata group, it is a homecoming. A product of the Tata Administrative Service, he had worked for Tata Tea and had been associated with the launch of Kanan Devan tea in the south. He later moved to Tata Chemicals where he was involved with the launch of Tata Salt. His last assignment with the Tata group was at Titan Industries as marketing controller. Later he was at Hindustan Lever and then chief executive officer of Disney Consumer Products.

Vijay Singh set up Sony Music from scratch and was appointed chief executive officer in 1996 with the brief of setting up the music company in India. Shridhar Subramaniam, director -marketing, has replaced Vijay Singh at Sony Music.