MAM
Smart Joules appoints Gaurav Kejriwal as CTPO
Mumbai – Smart Joules has announced the appointment of Gaurav Kejriwal as its new Chief of Product and Technology Officer (CPTO). With a prominent career in the field of technology as a leader and a proven history of scaling enterprise products, Kejriwal’s addition to the organisation is set to drive Smart Joules’ innovation in the field of automation, IOT & artificial intelligence.
Before joining Smart Joules, Gaurav played a crucial role at GreyOrange Pvt. Ltd, a leading warehouse automation company that specialises in robotics and software solutions. As Director and Entrepreneur in Residence, he contributed to launching and accelerating robotic technologies worldwide, achieving significant revenue milestones, and guiding cross-functional teams in developing products and market strategies. Most Recently, he started an intrapreneurial venture with first-of-its-kind Robotic AMR Technology, called RMS, to replace the traditional Conveyors and scaled it to ~$15mn in revenue across multiple geographies. In his professional career of over 11 years, he has excelled in strategic positions, including Engineering Lead, Product Architect, and Associate Director – Product & Engineering. Kejriwal holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics & Communication from BIT Mesra and has deep knowledge and expertise in new business development, product management, and enterprise technology sales.
Sharing his excitement to be a part of Smart Joules Family, Kejriwal stated, “I am driven by the desire to create efficient products and technologies at Smart Joules that address the world’s energy challenges, particularly in emerging markets with vast potential for growth and efficiency improvements. Here, I see an opportunity to make a transformative impact on product innovation, technology advancement, and global energy consumption.”
As CPTO, Gaurav will lead significant initiatives to strengthen intelligent automation in building management systems with an aim to reduce costs and maximise value. His immediate objectives include targeting new clients for Smart Joules’ revolutionary technology DeJoule, and enhancing energy optimization through system automation.
Gaurav’s appointment comes at a crucial time when Smart Joules’ market growth is already accelerating. The brand can use Gaurav’s vast expertise in identifying & solving pressing industry challenges including adoption and usability of building management systems, as they are often hampered due to complexity and limited usability. His combined experience will help Smart Joues to leverage opportunities in the international market.
Commenting on Kejriwal’s appointment, Smart Joules CEO Arjun Gupta said, “Our vision is to deliver 0.1% of the world’s decarbonization target within this decade, equivalent to saving 29 million tons of carbon emissions. We aim to achieve this by scaling up cooling as a service and intelligent automation across the developing world. It’s time to make building management systems as simple and pleasurable to use as Facebook and Google so that complex, dynamic, and evolutionary energy-guzzling systems such as cooling remain continuously optimised over time. This requires innovators to stay close to customers, maintain a deep foundational understanding of existing and emerging technologies, and effectively lead the most talented teams to execute bold visions. Gaurav is going to be a key driver of that growth by making energy savings simple, substantial, and profitable for our clients.”
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.
