MAM
The Script Room completes three years; plans original web series
Mumbai: Ad agency The Script Room has completed three years and a hundred ad films. Founded by Rajesh Ramaswamy and Ayyappan Raj in 2019, the agency has been offering content strategies, script writing and production to support clients.
The Script Room bagged its first project in April 2019 for Netflix India, a campaign around one of its originals “Selection Day.” Nine films were shot in one night. The campaign won the fledgling company the ‘Best Digital Creative Award’ at Star Re-Imagine awards. Their second campaign with a series of ten ads titled ‘So, what are you watching?’ for Netflix went on air during the World Cup and was an Effie Finalist. Post that The Script Room has worked with brands like OYO, Chumbak, Vedantu, Bumble, PhonePe, Great Learning, CoinSwitch, My11Circle, RummyCircle, PaperBoat and many more. Many of the films are popular and have won prestigious awards like Kyoorius and Abbys.
The young bespoke advertising outfit is modelled as a writers’ room and has worked with a diverse portfolio of clients.
“Over the three years, we’ve managed to run a smart, clean, cheerful set-up,” said The Script Room co-founder Ayyappan Raj. “Maintain a good work-life balance, avoid being factory-fied, encourage individuals to pursue whatever they want personally, good food, good drinks, bad jokes… simple joys and general happiness. Thanks to every single person who’s helped us do this.”
“This year and the coming years we are going after two things, first is something that’s long overdue, developing our own The Script Room Original – a new web-series that’s in the final stages of writing. Second is creating a working model of writers room for advertising, where we engage with writers outside of TSR. This we piloted a few months back and it’s coming about quite well,” he added.
“Like what one expects from a good movie script, we wouldn’t want The Script Room journey, our plot line, to lag or meander. Anything and everything that we’re doing is to progress the story further, while adding depth and colour,” he further said.
“These three years has been quite a ride. Honestly, we hadn’t planned it out. In fact, we just decided to go with the flow,” said The Script Room co-founder Rajesh Ramaswamy. “We’ve met a lot of interesting people along the way. Enjoyed a lot of goodwill, faith and trust. A lot of friends cheered us along. A lot of clients embraced this model. Though we didn’t have a retainer model, they’ve been good enough to return. That’s encouraging. They’ve also been kind enough to spread a good word about us.”
Ramaswamy added, “We’ve been clear that we want to collaborate with as many interesting people as possible. So, we’ve worked with a lot of established directors, and also a lot of new young talent. We keep engaging and meeting all kinds of writers from all fields with different sensibilities. People have given us books to read that they are working on. Some just come and jam with us on a story idea. Some come and sing us songs or recite shayari. All just for love. With no great agenda. We love this process and would always want to keep that alive. That’s our only trip.”
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.
