Know your Alumni - Kartik Chandrasekaran

Name of Alumni: ??????????????????? ??????????? Kartik Chandrasekaran

Education pursued at DBATU:???????????? B. Tech. Chemical Engineering (1993 -1997)

Profile Post DBATU:???????????????????????????? MS in Chem Engg, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio (1998-2000) with full teaching assistantship and tuition waiver

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About Kartik’s Professional Journey:

After completing his master’s degree, Kartik started working as a Process Engineer at Polycarp Incorporated, performing analysis with GC, ICP-MS and TLC on polymers and other ingredients. Later, he moved from the research laboratory to the production floor to help out when the production manager went on a vacation. After six months, when the production manager left the organization, he was asked to take over the position temporarily, till they hired a new manager. After a few months of performance, Kartik was offered the permanent Production Manager position. As a Production Manager, he managed the supply chain of the facility and learnt all aspects of the supply chain. During that time, Kartik also got certified in ISO 9001. After a year and a half as a production manager, Polycarb opened a new facility in Roberta, GA (30 miles from Macon, GA) and inquired if he would be willing to move down there to set up the plant and run it.

Kartik moved there in March of 2002. He walked into a facility with 150,000 sq ft of space with a roof and walls. He had the experience of setting up the facility from scratch, doing Value stream mapping to set up the flow of the facility, working with the installers and the local and state governments on permits, etc. The facility was set up with two 1000-gallon jacketed reactors, four hi-speed dispersers and four 10,000-gallon storage tanks. Piping was set up to receive raw materials directly into the tanks from tankers outside and for raw materials to be directly pumped to the six-process equipment’s that were installed. As the assistant plant manager, he got the facility up and running within just six months to total production capacity.

Later, Kartik moved to California in June 2003 and started working as an Operations Manager/Production Manager at Arlon Adhesives and Films. He was asked to run the graphics converting department, where the finished goods were produced and packed before they were shipped out to the customer. The company had an OTD goal of 97% and was only at 92% as the converting department was backed up. They were running seven days a week 24 hours to catch up with the rest of the plant and with orders that needed to go out. After a month into the role, he worked with the industrial engineer to do a time study and found that the department was running the machines only 22% of the time and the rest of the time was spent on paperwork to make sure that everything was logged into the ERP system for tracking (All products were barcoded and had tracking back to the source for ISO 9001).? After discussions with the plant manager, he requested to do a pilot program as all information was available on the backend ERP system. They installed a touchscreen on one of the converting machines, which brought up the required product barcodes for the operator to select instead of scanning five different barcodes to ensure traceability. This pilot program was a huge success, and the efficiency of that machine increased by about 300%. They Implemented this across all converting machines in six months and we were able to cut back to 5 days a week and move the bottleneck further down to the coating line. Also trained and implemented 5S, lean manufacturing and Six Sigma. Kartik was eventually asked to take over the coating department and run through a similar program there. After four years with Arlon, Kartik moved to Technicolor, as a business pertains analyst and a quality manager. At Technicolor, where movies were made on film, he studied the entire operations and applied value stream mapping to map out a more efficient flow across the different departments. This helped improve labour efficiencies by around 20%. He also used Six Sigma and lean manufacturing processes to improve yield and further improve labour efficiencies. He studied the rules and regulations of forty different unions and developed a labour model to accurately predict labour costs based on the amount of processed film. As a quality manager, he set up processes and systems to get the facility ISO 9001 certified.

After a four-year mark, Kartik had another opportunity come knocking as a Senior Manager of technical operations for Beachbody. His role was to be the bridge between the product development team and operations. In this role, he was also responsible for quality control. Here, he started with fitness equipment’s and eventually moved on to supplements. He managed over 120 vendors globally with a large chunk of them out of China. He built the tech ops team at Beachbody, which handled the development and management of product specifications and quality control of over 400 SKUs. Also, he established processes and systems for NPI, Supplier Performance Measurement Systems, etc. He also learnt all the aspects of the direct-to-consumer space, including but not limited to media spending, CAC, CTR, etc. It was a very entrepreneurial environment that experienced explosive growth, and he saw Beachbody grow from a $350 million to $700 million company in just four years when he was there. After four years at Beachbody, he decided to move on to a new opportunity.

Kartik had two short stints, one with Gefen where he dealt with the manufacturing of electronics and the other with Hatchbeauty where he dealt with operations on the cosmetics side. With these two stints he learnt additional aspects of dealing with the retail side of the business as to how to deal with retailers like CVS, Walgreens, Costco, Walmart, Sams Club, etc.

After these two short stints, he joined Golden Hippo Media as a director of supply chain managing the supply chain for twenty-three different brands and over 1700 SKUs. He set up the entire supply chain with dual sourcing and set up a new warehouse for fulfillment in the DTC space. He gained an additional insight into the e-commerce DTC space including dealing with Amazon. He managed twenty-nine different contract manufacturers in the nutraceutical space. Golden Hippo also experienced explosive growth and grew from $200 million to $600 million in revenue in the just three years when he was there. After three years at Golden Hippo, he moved to the bay area and joined Veyl Ventures.

Kartik joined Veyl Ventures as employee no four, primarily heading up supply chain and product development. But with this startup, he had to roll up his sleeves and handle a lot more than supply chain and product development. He established all systems from scratch to ensure growth. In just five years the company has grown from $10 million to $250 million in revenue. In those five years, they launched and acquired a total of five brands.

In all the experiences above, Kartik either set up or transitioned to new ERP systems and learned the intricate workings of different ERP and WMS systems. He learned how to work with private equity firms and the aspects of mergers and acquisitions.

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When asked about his tales about his time at DBATU, he mentioned a few of the below memories.

§? In our first year at BATU i.e., 1993-94, towards the end of our year, we wanted to compete in intercollegiate festivals, especially MALHAR, which is held at St. Xavier's College in Mumbai. There was a lot of resistance from management, but after a lot of persuasion, we were able to get approval and register our team representing DBATU at MALHAR. Bharatram scored first prize in Circa. MALHAR is very competitive with over 130 colleges participating in this festival. We also reached finals in a few of the events, which raised the bar for Team DBATU.

§? During the first year of Abhiyanta Vasant - most of the first-year students had planned to go home as we were homesick. We had initially planned to participate in the theatre competition. We were planning to skip the festival and go home, just like the other first-year students. Dr. T. Ravichandran sir persuaded and convinced us to stay. We performed the play, and it turned out to be a huge success and we won the first prize for the play. We had quite a few impromptu dialogues that came out from Kumar Melkari and Ashik Swaminathan.

§? During our third year at BATU, a group of us decided to start the hostel mess. I remember that Amit from final year chemical and I had to go to Mahad to get a contract for large commercial gas cylinders. We took the university scooter and had a tyre puncture on our way there, and on our way back, the headlights went out and Amit, who was sitting behind, held a torch on my shoulder almost the entire ride back.

§? During our third year, the hostel rules were set that no one should be outside after 11:00 PM. Once, almost a hundred students from the hostel had gone to watch a movie in Mahad, and it was almost 1:00 AM by the time we got back. When we got back, we saw that the hostel's front door was locked, and the hostel guard was sitting in front. So, we all decided to enter the hostel from the back (walking through the fields) and enter through the ground-floor bathrooms. Dogs started barking as we got close, and we all rushed in through the bathroom windows.

§? Whenever anyone came back from home, their bags were raided for any food items. There was a student in our wing who came back from home and brought a box full of grapes. He hid it in his room. When he was out for dinner in the mess, some of us climbed through the window to steal those grapes. Later the stolen food items were distributed among the students.

§? Birthday bumps on birthdays were compulsory.

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Glimpses

To our esteemed alumni Mr. Kartik Chandrasekaran as you embark on your professional and personal journeys ahead, may every opportunity be a stepping stone to success. Wishing you boundless achievements, fulfilling experiences, and endless joy in all your endeavors. Your alma mater Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Vidyavihar, Lonere, Raigad stands proud, cheering you on every step of the way. Best wishes for a remarkable future!