MAM
EssenceMediacom & GroupM ESP renew A23’s partnership with Celebrity Cricket League for season 10
Mumbai: EssenceMediacom, GroupM’s newest and largest media agency along with GroupM ESP, the entertainment, esports, and sports division of GroupM successfully facilitated the dynamic partnership renewal between A23, India’s leading skill-based gaming platform, and the Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) for its 10th season.
Marking another exciting chapter in this collaboration, A23 returns as the presenting sponsor, building upon the success of their partnership last year. This strategic alliance leverages the shared passion for entertainment and excitement inherent in both brands, promising an unparalleled experience for the audience.
GroupM South Asia head of sports, esports, and live entertainment Vinit Karnik emphasized the strategic importance of the partnership, stating, “Celebrity Cricket League sits at the crossroads on sports and entertainment bringing together the length and breadth of India’s entertainment industry. With a robust distribution plan spanning regional and national sports channels alongside JioCinema; CCL 2024 is poised to break all its previous records. We’re proud to facilitate the dynamic partnership between A23 and CCL for 2nd year in a row. Building on last seasons’ successes, we’re confident of a rewarding season of the league for A23 in the coming weeks.”
Celebrating its 10th year, CCL is the ultimate “sportainment” spectacle, seamlessly blending the worlds of cinema and cricket. As the only sports league in India uniting over 200 actors from eight different languages, it transcends regional boundaries and fosters a sense of national unity. The upcoming season, commencing on February 23rd in Sharjah and continuing with 20 action-packed matches across India, promises electrifying entertainment for a diverse audience.
A23 VP-marketing, head digital works Gunnidhi Singh Sareen expressed excitement about the renewed collaboration, stating, “We are thrilled to announce our renewed collaboration with Celebrity Cricket League (CCL), a partnership that seamlessly aligns with the essence of A23. CCL, with its massive and diverse fan base spanning across the nation, breaks all barriers and boundaries, creating an experience that fosters the feeling of ‘playing together.’”
Last season, CCL garnered an impressive cumulative TV and digital reach, captivating over 250 million viewers throughout the country. This year’s edition, CCL Season 10, promises to be even grander, bringing together the most beloved film celebrities under one platform for an unmatched entertainment extravaganza.
Celebrity Cricket League founder Vishnu Induri stated, “We are happy to have A23 as the presenting sponsor for the 10th season of CCL. A23 has been a committed partner for CCL since the last season sharing our passion towards talent and the spirit of cricket. With their continued support CCL is scaling and we are looking forward to our biggest season this year.
As EssenceMediacom and GroupM ESP facilitate this dynamic partnership between A23 and CCL for the second year in a row, all stakeholders anticipate a rewarding season filled with entertainment, engagement, and unforgettable moments both on and off the field.
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.
