Brands
Britannia Marie Gold chooses ‘an act over an ad’ with HerStore on International Women’s Day
Mumbai: Britannia Marie Gold, one of India’s leading biscuit brands today launched HerStore, a unique digital ecosystem for women entrepreneurs honoring its commitment from 2023 of #LetsKeepGoing to celebrate women every day. With HerStore, it is furthering its commitment to empower women entrepreneurs with constant support throughout their journey.
The tagline “Saath Judo, Saath Udo” captures the essence of the brand’s commitment to cultivating a supportive digital ecosystem where women entrepreneurs stand united, and uplift each other, so that they can do more and be more.
HerStore, powered by Britannia Marie Gold has taken the initiative towards its commitment with the launch of a unique marketplace which lists both products and services – all owned by women. The platform will also soon offer a comprehensive suite of training, workshops, and upskilling videos tailored to equip women entrepreneurs with the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in a dynamic market landscape. This will be complemented by a community to enable knowledge-sharing and mentoring among women entrepreneurs. The platform will also further fuel aspiring womenpreneurs with seamless access to Britannia Marie Gold Mystartup Contest Season 5.
HerStore is built on learning from four immensely successful chapters of the Britannia Marie Gold Mystartup programme. The programme was initiated in 2019 to enable women to overcome barriers concerning finance and upskilling required to embark on their entrepreneurial journeys. Thus far, MyStartup Contest has provided seed funding of Rs. 10 lakhs each for over 50 entrepreneurs and equipped 50k+ women with the skills to start their businesses. More than 25 of the winners now have thriving businesses, and already over 10 winners have been onboarded on HerStore.
The strategic design of HerStore with the proposition of ‘Shop | Be Inspired | Sell,’ is aimed at democratising an end-to-end ecosystem for women business owners. HerStore is a unique platform to list both products and services for Indian consumers at no additional cost to sellers and a zero-perc ent commission model. The platform will soon be available in several Indian languages such as Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil and many more. Currently, over 50 businesses have already been listed on the HerStore marketplace.
Commenting on the launch, Britannia Industries chief marketing officer Amit Doshi said, “At Britannia Marie Gold, our unwavering commitment lies in empowering women entrepreneurs and nurturing their growth. This year, we decided to solidify our commitment by choosing not to do a brand advertisement, but by launching a digital ecosystem which will truly empower women – every single day of the year.
With the launch of the marketplace as the first step, we are hopeful that the ease of managing a business on HerStore along with the extensive Britannia Marie Gold community in India will truly democratise the ecosystem for women entrepreneurs.”
HerStore is conceptualised by MullenLowe Lintas group and the digital ecosystem has been built by Hash Connect.
Subramanyeswar S. (Subbu), Group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group & Chief Strategy Officer – APAC, MullenLowe Global exclaimed, “Britannia Marie Gold has a strong emotional resonance among its audience – the Homemakers or as the brand believes them to be – Everyday Athletes. Led by an inspiring purpose to make them “Do more. Be more”, the new idea “HerStore” is a movement to empower and support womenpreneurs. ‘HerStore’ is also special to us as it’s the very first initiative from Lowe Lintas DX, our digital creative unit set up in collaboration with Meta. Their offering of advanced strategic and creative services, specifically designed for long-term brand building in the digital domain, was a perfect fit for this particular drive from Britannia.
I do not doubt that ‘HerStore’ will help revolutionize the digital landscape on the web. It embodies the spirit of the brand to enable entrepreneurship and drive meaningful change in the lives of the Everyday Athlete!”
Hash Connect chief strategy officer Vinod Kumar emphasised the project’s unique challenges. “Creating HerStore posed distinct challenges – our goal was to build a robust technology platform empowering women entrepreneurs as sellers. Simultaneously, we aimed to ensure a simple yet sophisticated user experience. Another element of uniqueness is that HerStore caters to not just e-commerce businesses with products, but services and local businesses as well. Leveraging our e-commerce knowledge and insights into Indian consumer behaviour, we’ve built a platform promising an excellent experience for sellers, buyers, and the brand.”
Brands
Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
