Venkat Sumantran

Venkat Sumantran is an Indian businessman, academic, and author. He has worked with the auto and mobility industry in the USA, Europe, and India for over three decades.[1] He is the Chairman of Celeris Technologies and a member of the board of directors for several organizations in the domains of automotive, electronics, and aviation.[2][3][4] Sumantran is one of the inventors of the Tata Nano 1 lakh car.[5]

Venkat R. Sumantran
Sumantran at Mainforum conference, Monterrey, Mexico in 2018
Born
Venkataramani Sumantran
NationalityIndian
Education
Occupation
  • Businessman
  • author
  • academic
Known forTata Nano

Education

Sumantran received a B.Tech degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1981.[6] He subsequently earned his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 1983[7] where his work involved stability and control of airships.[8] He went on to receive his Ph.D. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech here he worked on low-speed airfoils suitable for the emerging class of remotely piloted aircraft.[9]

Career

Sumantran began his professional career at the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan in 1985.[10] He returned to India and became Executive Director of Tata Motors Ltd. in 2001,[11] where he was responsible for the fledgling Passenger Car business and simultaneously oversaw the company's Engineering Research Centre. During this period, his contributions to Frugal engineering were acclaimed in relation to his development of the Tata Nano – the car that gained global acclaim for low-cost innovation.[12][13]

Later, in his role as Vice-Chairman of Ashok Leyland Ltd.,[14] he founded and was Chairman of Defiance Technologies Ltd, a subsidiary of Ashok Leyland that went on to help the Renault-Nissan Alliance develop the entry-level global car platform – referred to as the CMF-A architecture.[15] In May 2020, Indigo Airlines appointed Sumantran as independent director.[16]

Academia, government, and industry bodies

Sumantran advises the Government of India as a member of the Consultative Group for Future Transportation at the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor. He has served on the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and on India’s National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council.[17] He has served as Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s National Defence Council.[18]

He has closely worked with academia and served on the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar.[19] He is an Adjunct Professor at the Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (MISI) - a joint initiative between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Government of Malaysia.[20]

Awards and honors
  • Sumantran is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2012[21]
  • He was named a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers SAE International, the highest award for outstanding contribution to the automotive industry.[22]

Bibliography

He is the co-author of the book, Faster, Smarter, Greener: the Future of the Car and Urban Mobility, published by the MIT Press in 2017.[23][24]

References
  1. "IN Company Profile & Executives - InterGlobe Aviation Ltd. - Wall Street Journal". www.wsj.com.
  2. "TVS Electronics | Investor Relations". TVS Electronics.
  3. "IndiGo appoints Venkataramani Sumantran as independent director". The Economic Times.
  4. "EV battery maker Grinntech raises $2 m led by Sumantran, Lakshmi Narayanan". The Financial Express. 28 August 2020.
  5. "Tatas Dream Car Poses A Greater Challenge, Says Telco Official". The Financial Express. 15 July 2003.
  6. "Office of Alumni & Corporate Relations". alumni.iitm.ac.in.
  7. "Princeton University Graduate Alumni Index, 1839-1998". library.princeton.edu.
  8. "NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)". ntrs.nasa.gov.
  9. Marchman, J. F.; Sumantran, V.; Schaefer, C. G. (1987). "Acoustic and turbulence influences on stall hysteresis". AIAA Journal. 25 (1): 50–51. Bibcode:1987AIAAJ..25...50M. doi:10.2514/3.9578.
  10. "Sumantran joins IndiGo board". The Hindu. 29 May 2020.
  11. "Tata Motors top gun quits". www.telegraphindia.com.
  12. "Sumantran,man behind Tata's Rs 1L car resigns - Times of India". The Times of India.
  13. "Tata Motor's V Sumantran steps down as director". The Economic Times.
  14. "Sumantran appointed as non-executive vice-chairman of Ashok Leyland". Livemint. 4 November 2011.
  15. "Defiance Tech brings in domain leaders to strengthen presence". The Economic Times.
  16. "IndiGo appoints Venkataramani Sumantran as independent director". The Economic Times.
  17. "domain-b.com : National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council Reconstituted". www.domain-b.com.
  18. "CII". cii.in.
  19. "Board of Governors". IITRPR.
  20. "Faculty – Malaysia Institute For Supply Chain Innovation". Misi.edu.my.
  21. "DAA - List of Distinguished Alumnus Awardees". alumni.iitm.ac.in.
  22. "Three Indians to be honoured at SAE". Hindustan Times. 30 March 2006.
  23. Dunn, Steve (23 April 2019). "Faster, Smarter, Greener: The Future of the Car and Urban Mobility by Venkat Sumantran, Charles Fine, and David Gonsalvez (review)". Transportation Journal. pp. 145–147.
  24. "Faster, Smarter, Greener". www.goodreads.com.
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