Brands
Philips India teams up with Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders as Official Grooming Partners for IPL 2024
Mumbai: Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology and innovation, proudly announces its partnership with two prestigious Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), as their official grooming partner for the IPL 2024 season. This collaboration aims to harness the unparalleled popularity of cricket in India to spotlight Philips grooming products under the narrative “Groom like a Pro, Play Like a Pro,” aligning seamlessly with the brand’s ethos of excellence and performance.
As cricket aficionados enjoy the thrilling matches of IPL 2024, Philips India elevates the grooming routines of players and fans alike, urging them to present their best selves on and off the field. This partnership underscores Philips’ dedication to cricketers and individuals, enabling them to achieve a professional trim with our innovative grooming solutions.
In this collaboration, players from Sunrisers Hyderabad proudly display the Philips India logo on their headgear, amplifying brand visibility both on-ground and across digital and social media platforms throughout the tournament. Additionally, Philips India plans to curate personalized experiences in various cities, featuring contests and events where fans can win exclusive signed merchandise from their favorite players.
Through these initiatives, Philips India seeks to forge authentic connections between fans and their cherished teams, while reinforcing the brand’s superiority exemplified by the Philips Multigroomer. By inspiring a generation of cricket enthusiasts to groom like professionals, Philips aims to instill confidence that enhances performance, ultimately shaping a new standard of grooming excellence in the realm of cricket.
Philips Indian Subcontinent, business head – personal health Deepali Agarwal commented, “We are delighted to join forces with Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders as their official grooming partner for the IPL 2024 season. Cricket and grooming share a common thread of precision, skill, and confidence, and we are excited to champion this synergy with our advanced grooming products. Through this association, we aim to inspire men across India to groom like professionals and unleash their full potential, mirroring the ethos of our brand.”
Expressing their enthusiasm about the collaboration, the owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders shared their thoughts:
Sunrisers Hyderabad CEO K Shanmugan stated, “We are thrilled to welcome Philips India on board as our official grooming sponsor for the upcoming T-20 season. As we deliver exceptional performances on the field, it is equally important for our players to maintain their grooming standards. With Philips’ expertise in grooming solutions, we are confident that our players will look their best and feel confident, contributing to their overall performance.”
Kolkata Knight Riders, CMO Ninda Dey added, “The association with Philips India comes at an opportune moment for Kolkata Knight Riders as we embark on another exciting journey this season of T20. Grooming plays a crucial role in the lives of our players, and partnering with Philips allows us to provide them with the best grooming tools and products. Together, we aim to set new benchmarks of excellence 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.
