Ravi Kota: After Shaping HAL’s Future Appointed Director (Ops)

By Girish Linganna: Having taken flight on gilt-edged wings ever since he scripted the success story of HAL’s fixed-wing business segment by making operational the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) LCA Tejas fleet, Ravi Kota has now excelled himself by being appointed as Director (Operations), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)—one of the world’s oldest and largest aerospace and defence manufacturers established in December 1940—the country’s public sector aerospace and defence company.

With over three decades of extensive knowledge gathered through long years spent in diverse sectors the technocrat will now lead the development of strategic and functional plans to stretch HAL’s operational capacities to their limits—giving more teeth to its capabilities, pushing the company’s indigenization process and bolstering the smooth implementation of the company’s robust IT framework.

Before this, Ravi K—a Mechanical Engineering graduate and an Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, and the Institut Aéronautique et Spatial (IAS), Toulouse, France, alumnus—had held the position of Executive Director, Corporate Planning, at HAL.

Ravi K had led a team of HAL’s experts to secure the biggest contract in India’s defence sector history by ironing out a 2021 agreement for the supply of 83 Mk-1A light combat aircraft (LCA) amounting to ₹36,000 crore.

He had also successfully navigated collaboration between HAL and the IAF to bag a further order of 97 LCA Mk-1A meant to comprise the backbone of the IAF fleet in future conflict scenarios.

Ravi K played a crucial part in setting up facilities with the latest technology and scaling up capacity for manufacture of 16 light combat aircraft yearly.

He was also chief motivator of a project to oversee delivery of twin-seater LCA aircraft. His zeal spurred HAL’s team of experts to scale up the indigenized content in the LCA-Tejas project. The LCA Division flourished into a leading integrator under him by discovering new ways whereby it could outsource fuselage assemblies with operational criticality to private partners.

As Executive Director and General Manager in HAL’s LCA Tejas Division, Ravi K had played a crucial role in improving the fleet’s serviceability through several innovative initiatives, one of them being ensuring faultless data communication among the many bases of the IAF in the country.

Looking to the future, Ravi K’s key priorities will include further solidifying HAL’s presence on the international stage, ironing out supply chain bottlenecks, improving technology management and leading HAL’s digital transformation.

Disclaimer:- This story has not been edited by SugerMint staff and provided by the agency. SugerMint will not be responsible in any way for the content of this story.

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