Our Pillars at L&T Valves Blog

Our Pillars

			A K Banerjee
	The driving force behind this unit of Larsen & Toubro is Mr. A. K. Banerjee, the Vice President of Valves Business Group. He has more than three decades of experience in manufacture and marketing of industrial valves. Mr. Banerjee, a Mechanical Engineering graduate from IIT Kharagpur, has handled a variety of assignments in L&T, in different locations.He spearheaded L&T Valves export operations – by forging alliances with the global oil majors as well as building an international marketing network – and positioned L&T as a preferred supplier of critical valves for the Hydrocarbon Industry worldwide.He was also the force behind L&T’s new valve manufacturing operation in China.In the international arena, Mr. Banerjee is a member of the Valve World Advisory Committee, both for Europe and Asia, as well as Member of American Petroleum Institute (API). He is also the Chairman of the Valve Division of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

			Arun Dev Give your best, things will fall in place!
	Aun Dev, a staunch L&Tite since 1982, heads the international business of the Valves Business Group. AD, as he is known, joined L&T’s Marketing Division soon after he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in M.Tech – Industrial Management. He acquired his Bachelors in B.Tech Chemical Engineering from Madras University. “Give your best, things will fall in place,” says AD who has risen from the level of a Trainee Engineer to Head-International Sales in L&T. He held various positions in the valves business group both in domestic and international sales. Original, daring, hard working and a strict disciplinarian is how AD’s team sees him. This excellent organizer and perfect genius believes in delegating authority and watch his team paint the picture in bold strokes. He has great passion towards cars, and tennis and motor sport are among his favorite activities. His shelf is pilled up with business, science and thriller books. His wife, son and daughter are his world outside office.


			Rajanish S P Take it as it comes!
	His greatest affair is to move. “Experience and travel are education themselves. I relish visiting places of historical importance,” says Rajanish. Clients call him Raj, colleagues call him SPR has been an L&Tite for twenty-one years now. He started his career with Fouress Engineering in Banglore and joined the Valves Business Group of L&T in 1987. His career in VBG began as a sales engineer handling the Gujarat region from there he moved to Bangalore to handle the entire region of Karnataka. SPR moved to Mumbai to take-up the role of a section head in 1993 followed by his role as a sales development manager in Chennai.“The most challenging and thrilling experience came from my deputation at Houston, USA”, said Rajanish. L&T LLC office and warehouse at Houston was set-up by Rajanish in 2001 to address the North American market. He was a single man army in the US handling the entire operations right from accounting and procurement to delivery and transportation of valves to customers. Rajanish represented L&T in the API committee meet and was involved in the drafting the revised API 591 standard in 2003. After spending six years in USA, SPR moved back to Chennai to head international sales. Today, he heads sales & promotion of new products and markets, and is actively involved in marketing service and brand building functions as well. The young team around him find him, energetic and decisive with a built-in mechanism of being fair. Football, volleyball, motoGP and F1 are among his favorite sport and he also pursues a secret hobby of collecting stamps, he says.


			S Kalyanaraman Ever optimistic!
	He appreciates views and opinions and counts each of his team members as a friend. This cool and composed manager heads the sales and marketing operation through out India. Kalyanaraman is a Mechanical Engineer and he started his career with Cethar Vessels selling Fluidised Bed Combustion boilers. He joined L&T in the Eutectic division Chennai in 1991 as a application engineer and from there, moved to Bangalore and Kolkatta where he held various positions. In the year 2002, Kalyan became a sales manager with L&T Valves Business Group and spearheaded operations at Mumbai. He rose to become the head for domestic sales in 2004 when he moved back to Chennai. Since then, Kalyan is regarded as ‘a manager who does not miss a beat’. With a highly progressive thinking and a positive attitude, he is very observant to the ever-changing business environment.Kalyan enjoys swimming, an early morning beach walk and is passionate about keeping himself fit. He finds long drives very relaxing and rejuvenating. Chess and tennis are his favourite games. Kalyan’s spouse Jayanthi works as a Quality Assurance Engineer with BSNL and his son Vivek studies in class eight. Vivek is growing up as a socially responsible individual who is very conscious about environment and ecological balance.


			D.S. Narayan Ever unshaken!
	Underneath a cool, calm and collected exterior lays a steadfast, prudent, just and firm personality. Well, this is D S Narayan, head IT and improvement initiatives at Valves Business Group, L&T.DSN as he is known, played different roles in VBG as he moved up the ladder. He was a Section Head in Kolkata, then became the Sales Development Manager at VBG and later the Head of Marketing Services at AIL. His team of techies find him unshaken in the face of difficulties, industrious and an excellent craftsman. ‘My passion is towards books, work and family’, says DSN. His wife manages a Montessori school while his son and daughter who have crossed their teens are now settling down in life. DSN also enjoys traveling, especially train journey.


			Paul Isaac Be optimistic, cos its not how long you live but how you live!
	An engineer from Calicut and an MBA from Mumbai, Paul Isaac heads the North American business of the valves business group. Paul joined L&T in 1992, at IVS-BKC Mumbai after his tenure with the Sanmar Engineering group. He played an important role in bagging many large & prestigious orders and also assisted sales managers to streamline operations at BKC. Paul worked as an executive assistant to VP of erstwhile Group IV in Mumbai and was exposed to the corporate nerve center and its multiple diversified business units and manufacturing plants. The tenure at specialty valves section gave him an exposure to power industries, including Nuclear power. In early 2002 he joined the International sales team based in Audco factory, Chennai. Paul handled European region for three years and later became the Zonal Manager for European business with a short stint being posted overseas at Tees-side, North England. In 2005, he started to manage the North American region, a continent culturally different from Asia & Europe. Today Paul spear heads the US team based in Houston, and manages L&T LLC USA and its warehouse. He is an active member with various organizations viz. American Petroleum Institute (ongoing RP 615 task force member), Indo American Chamber of Commerce, PVF round table etc. Paul is a shutterbug and loves to relax with country music (Don Williams is a favorite). He is entertained by every aspect of business and is passionate to pursue any opportunity to win it. Paul enjoys playing Golf together with customers and also coaching children on soccer at public county club. His small family is made of his wife Shiny who works as an administrator at a private school in Houston and two children Shruti and Swaraj.


			B Narasimhan Selling is my passion!
	Narasimhan graduated in Mechanical Engineering from BITS, Pilani and started his career with McNally Bharat as a production engineer. After a year, he moved to J. N. Marshall, marketing 0steam-engineering products and later joined Laxmi Boilers as a sales man. He joined L&T in 1992 at IVS, SRO. He played an important role in increasing customer contact and set new standards for technical selling. This assignment also gave him a chance to hone his managerial skills. IVS-SRO’s break throughs in the pharmaceuticals sector was largely spearheaded by BN.He also handled the business development of Plug valves in Chennai and the credit of bagging the single largest order for plug valves lies with BN. BN headed all India stockist operation and later moved to international sales. Currently, he heads the sales and marketing efforts through out Middle East and Africa.He is a voracious reader, loves driving and enjoys cricket and chess. He also sets apart some of his free time for social service activities.BN’s wife Parimala is a qualified Carnatic singer. The couple has two children, Siddharth, an excellent painter and Janani Hamsini who is a skilled singer, taken after her mother.


			Mariappan Take it as it comes!
	Mari has been in L&T since1995. He joined the Mega Projects Cell, Specialty Valves Section, in Chennai that was formed to handle the valves requirement for large projects on a single window basis. He played a major role in launching butterfly valves for seawater application and also in the market development of products from international principals.In 2000, Mari moved to handle products for the Oil and Gas sector and marketing TMBV. In the later part of the year, he went to Pune to spearhead the Valves Marketing’s ERP Implementation. With the reorganization of the Specialty Valve Division, Mari moved to Mumbai in 2002 as Cluster Head for Nuclear and Defense Business. This was the period when Indian Nuclear industry was at its peak and L&T cornered a good share of the business. In April 2003 he moved back to Chennai to front end TMBV, API 6D Gate and Metseal valves and later became part of International Sales. He heads the Project & MRO business for Europe. Prior to joining L&T, Mari worked with boiler manufacturing companies like Ergodyne Pvt. Limited, IAEC Boilers and also Greaves Limited in their pump division. He is graduate engineer from Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai. Mari had a fun filled college life and still spends a lot of his time in college Alumni activities and socializing with his friends. Over the weekends one would always find Mari playing Badminton and Squash. Mari is married to Rajeswari and they have an eleven-year-old son, Muthumanikandan.


			S Venkatesh Work hard for what you enjoy!
	Strong and silent attitude, dedicated and a clear vision towards life are synonymous with Venkatesh, who handles VBG’s Asia Pacific operations.Venkatesh started his career as a GET (Graduate Engineer Trainee) in Audco in the year 1993. He gained experience in the procurement of castings at AIL and later moved to AIL’s Kancheepuram plant in 1994 as materials engineer.He worked in MPC/PPC for two years and in SCD of Ball valves product group for two years. Venkatesh moved to International Sales in 2000 and is now the territory manager of the Asia Pacific region. He operates from L&T’s office in Shanghai, China.His favourite authors are P G Wodehouse, Ayn Rand and John Grishim and he enjoys cricket and football. Calm and quite places are his most wanted travel destinations and Venkatesh says a big ‘No’ to big cities. He mostly relishes the Indian cuisine along with some Italian delicacies.His small family consists of his wife who is a homemaker and their little son.

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