MAM
Deccan Chargers ink multi-million dollar deal with Emirates
MUMBAI: Global airline company Emirates has shifted its sponsorship alliance from Kings XI Punjab to Deccan Chargers, signing a three-year multi-million dollar deal with the Hyderabad franchise as it makes the Southern region part of its focus area.
Being a team sponsor of Deccan Chargers, Emirates will have ‘Fly Emirates’ branding on the player jersey, pitch-side branding at each of the matches, player appearances, and hospitality among others.
Globally, Emirates is associated with sporting events like Fifa World Cup, Rugby World Cup, and ICC World Cup besides a whole host of other sporting events. It invests one per cent of its global revenues into sports sponsorship.
Emirates was earlier associated with Kings XI Punjab for three years since 2009 as a team sponsor. It, however, decided not to renew its deal with the Mohali franchise once it ended last year.
The Chargers on the other hand had Ultratech as their team sponsor last year, which has partnered Rajasthan Royals for the season 5 of the IPL.
Emirates Airline Vice President India & Nepal Orhan Abbas said, “Emirates had a three-year agreement with Kings XI Punjab beginning 2009 and the contract ended in 2011. We were looking at various options which have synergies with our brand. Our association with Deccan Chargers was the best fit and hence we entered into an agreement with them for the next three years.”
While refusing to give the specific value of the deal, Abbas said the multi-million dollar deal will allow the airline to connect with its consumers across India.
“Emirates has made a multi-million dollar commitment to the Deccan Chargers over the next three years starting March 2012. This three-year sponsorship commitment will allow Emirates to come closer to our customer base in one of the most important regions on our network, and share our cricketing passion with our customers.”
Abbas also asserted that sports is an important advertising vehicle for the company to raise brand awareness and build a close relationship with consumers.
The Deccan Chargers, starting their title challenge against the Chennai Super Kings in Vizag, will feature a host of household names, including Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara, who will captain the side, South African stars JP Duminy and Dale Steyn, as well as Indian wicket Keeper Batsman Parthiv Patel.
“We are proud to have a leading global brand like Emirates as our Team Sponsor for the next three seasons of the IPL. We are confident this association with Emirates will be fruitful. With an exciting new squad and sponsor, we look forward to the tournament and repeating our winning performance in DLF IPL 2012,” said Deccan Chargers co-owner Gayatri Reddy.
Additionally, McDowell‘s No 1 is Fan Friendzy sponsor while other partners include Kingfisher Premium as Good Times partner, Puma as apparel sponsor, Xenoh as deodrant partner, Muffins Innovations as tablet pc partner, Apollo Hospitals as medical partner, and Oakley as eyewear partner.
The media partners include Deccan Chronicle as print media partner, TV5 News as electronic media partner, Ad Age as outdoor partner and Big FM as radio partner.
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.
