IESA Appoints Ashwini K Aggarwal & Anilkumar Muniswamy as New Chairman and Vice Chairman for 2017

India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), has announced Ashwini K Aggarwal, Director, Applied Materials, India as Chairman of the Board of Director and Executive Committee effective immediately. Ashwini succeeds K Krishna Moorthy, who will continue as an advisor to the board. Anilkumar Muniswamy is the new Vice Chairman with Rajesh Krishnan, VP, Memory Solutions, Samsung Semiconductor India Research serving as the new Treasurer.

Ashwini joined IESA’s board in 2015. Prior to being named Chairman, he served as member of the board of Electronics Sector Skills Council and member/chair of various industry Special Interest Groups.

A veteran of the electronics industry for more than three decades, Aggarwal, is known for his global business, industry and operational expertise. He spent eighteen years as an executive at Hewlett- Packard Company, in various capacities including Country Sales, Country Marketing and Product Management. Aggarwal currently is the Director-Government Affairs at Applied Materials India and has been working on various industry enabling projects.

Speaking about his current role at IESA, Ashwini Aggarwal, Chairman, IESA said, “As a member of the IESA board, I have been inspired by the association’s ability to push the boundaries of industry networking, create enabling innovations and policies that drive the Indian Electronics Systems and Design ecosystem forward.” He further added, “I am honored to serve as Chairman and would like to thank Krishna Moorthy for his many contributions to IESA and the Indian ESDM industry during a benchmark performance year.”

“Ashwini brings deep knowledge of the high value electronics industry, as well as strong industry and governance experience, to lead the board during one of the most exciting periods of innovation and growth in our industry’s history”, said M N Vidyashankar, President, IESA.

“Our priorities this year will be to consolidate the increasing traction on Make in India, nurture the emerging green shoots of the startups and entrepreneurs and build on ground activation for talent development and innovation,” shared Ashwini. “We look forward to working with the Central and State governments, our industry members, entrepreneurs and other relevant stakeholders in India and abroad- to bring India on the radar of being a manufacturing hub at a global level,” added Ashwini Aggarwal.

The IESA Executive Council will also see the appointment of three new members; Vivek Sharma, Managing Director, STMicroelectronics; Jitendra Chaddah, Director, Operations and Strategic Relations, Intel India and Rajeev Khushu, Director, Corporate Affairs of Texas Instruments.  A team of 12 senior Industry leaders will collectively work to deliver on-ground activation for enabling innovation, investment and industry.

IESA has been instrumental in working with the central and state governments to bring out favorable policies to enable Indian electronics and semiconductor sector by driving numerous initiatives to bring awareness in the policy makers and working closely with them to help the industry overcome impediments for growth. IESA has also been aggressively working towards new government initiatives like ‘Make in India’, ‘Start-up India’ and ‘Digital India’ and has given valuable consultations to international companies who have shown interest to set-up electronics facilities in India. The executive council will continue working towards achieving the vision laid down collectively by the association member community.