Strategic Partners | Team

   Ramdas Menon obtained a B.E. in chemical engineering from Jadavpur University in 1988, and followed it up with an M. Tech. in the same discipline from IIT Madras in 1990. He has twenty years of work experience in engineering project management, process modeling and pilot plant studies, HR and Six Sigma. He is a certified Black Belt from the American Society for Quality, and has trained about 300 people in the Six Sigma methodologies in GE, TVS Electronics and Pfizer over a seven year period. In Pfizer, the projects mentored by him in the Worldwide Technology group resulted in a cost avoidance-cum-savings of $ 3 MM in the years 2007 and 2008. A Green Belt project done by him and his team on technology transfer was held up as a paradigm for MBB training in GE. His training sessions are very popular, and he was the best faculty in the John F Welch Technology Center, Bangalore in the year 2003.

His forte lies in explaining the relevance and power of statistical concepts in a lucid manner, and in encouraging the participants to make the connection from PowerPoint to real life.

Besides Six Sigma and Lean, he has also conducted other focused training programs on Creativity, Lateral Thinking, Risk Analysis (using Crystal Ball tools) and Negotiation.

   Raj Thyagarajan has thirty-five plus years of experience in industry, of which 10 yr were in Canada. He has worked with companies such as Nortel, Xerox, GE, BEL, SCIL and RPG Enterprises Ltd. He started as an engineer in Production, Quality, Product Development, etc. before moving on to managerial and leadership roles in Quality, Plant Operations, Sales and Services. He also specializes in the area of Business Excellence/Leadership through Quality, and was the Six Sigma consultant from 1997 to 2002 with GE Operations in India. His responsibilities at GE included rolling out Design for Six Sigma at GE Global R&D center at Bangalore.

Raj has also worked with clients such as Samtel Group, TVS Electronics and GE India. Raj has been a frequent speaker and has conducted workshops for Business Leaders in Forums such as CII, ASSOCHEM, Chemical Engineering Association of Mumbai, Indian Merchants Chamber, Mumbai etc. He was an active member in Indian Merchants Chamber’s Technology & Quality Improvement Committee for 3 years and was a member of the Committee that initiated and launched Ramakrishna Bajaj National Quality Award in 1996. He was also the Senior Examiner in the first year of its execution in 1997.

Raj holds a Master’s Degree in Physics with specialization in Wireless & Electronics from Madras University. He also holds a Digital Computer Technology Diploma from Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada. In addition, he has many certificates of Management Development Programmes conducted at Xerox and at GE-Crotonville.

   M. Ramesh is a metallurgist, and has a total work experience of nearly twenty years. He is a management consultant in the area of business advisory services such as management systems design and implementation. He has experience in the fields of quality, environment as well as occupational health & safety. He has independently handled the implementation of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 in several companies. He has provided general management consulting, TQM and ISO related services to companies such as ABB, SPIC, Bank of India, Hical, Nicholas Piramal, Siemens etc. He is an excellent trainer, and also has expertise in problem solving methodologies, change management and communication skills.

   T Srihari has nearly thirty years of work experience. Of this, the first twenty-two years were in sales, marketing and product management at the FMCG behemoth Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). At HUL, he worked his way up from a field sales job to a nationalproduct manager role. HUL recognized him for his outstanding contribution by sending him for a six-month residential Management Education Program at IIM Ahmedabad. He has a degree in commerce from Bangalore University.

He subsequently served GM Pens as General Manager for five years, where he developed and created a robust distribution infrastructure by developing alternate channels & creating long-term permanent growth drivers for the writing instruments business. He raised the productivity of the sales force from 48% to 70% by simplifying sales processes and systems.

After turning entrepreneur, he took over a sick business unit and has now brought it into the black in the space of two years.

He is also a keen student of psychology, and has designed and executed programs on organizational and people development

   Soordas Rajah has a meaningful financial background started off with an entrepreneurial venture in Chennai. Took up employment at Dubai, serving organisations in diverse fields of activity such as Furnishing, Travel and Tourism, Automobile, Electromechanical trading & contracting playing effective roles in Finance & Accounting, Commercial, Supply Chain, Quality, HR and Administrative areas. Involved in various innovative and critical initiatives and deployments as to process development, project management, information systems and quality in these organisations. Extensive travel involved in my various assignments gave excellent opportunity to experience the latest trends and imbibing the best global practices in diverse fields. Further to a setback due to a road accident, successfully promoted a Power Laundry in Coimbatore

   S Bhashyam is based in Bangalore, and has a work experience of thirty five years, of which 20 years were in purchase, production and quality in the FMCG major Reckitt Benckiser (formerly Reckitt and Colman) at their offices and facilities in Calcutta and Bangalore. He introduced important innovations in packaging in Reckitt, and was one of the key drivers in TQM. He led Cross Functional Teams (CFT-s) which designed and executed Leadership Development Programs, and also a Performance Appraisal System for workers and supervisors. His industrial relations skills saved the company $ 1 MM (Rs 45 million) in 1999, and he also contributed to a cost reduction of around $ 1.3 MM (Rs 60 million) using vendor development, waste reduction and negotiation.

Subsequently he worked at Spheris India (formerly HealthScribe) where he led the Quality initiative, which resulted in the ISO certification and subsequent recertification for the company.

   Subramaniam "Gopi" Gopalan is our advisor and mentor. He has been working outside India for more than three decades with renowned multinationals in senior management positions. He received his MBA in Operations Management and Business Strategy from the University of Detroit in Michigan. He is also a Certified Quality Engineer and a Certified Manufacturing Engineer.

Gopi is one of the first set of Master Black Belts from General Electric when they started the implementation of the Six Sigma methodologies. He has conducted hundreds of workshops for all levels of management at GE, and also to their distributors and suppliers. Gopi has played a key role in starting Joint Ventures in China, Korea, and India. He has implemented major business strategies using Six Sigma tools and Change Management techniques.

Gopi has conducted hundreds of workshops in different key topics in US and Asia. Six-Sigma, Purchasing Management, Advanced Sourcing Techniques, Negotiations, Work Planning, Motivation, Time Management, Change Management, Business Strategy for Working in China are some of his areas of expertise.

As a Consultant for GE India, Gopi has worked with Senior Managers of TVSE, TVS Tyres, Tata Steel, Bharati Telecom, ICICI, and a few other Indian corporations in changing some of their business practices using Six Sigma concepts. Gopi is currently on the Board of Uniken Inc (an internet security company), Classicswear (world class apparel makers for College sports and Corporations) and Team Progress Inc (consulting company). As the Director of Team Progress Inc, USA, Gopi works closely with Zellweger Associates, Switzerland and Nelson Motivation, USA.