Sh. Satish K. Kaura
Chairman, Samtel Group
Sh. Satish Kumar Kaura is the Chairman of the Samtel Group. He founded the Group in 1973. Under his leadership, Samtel has evolved into a world-class manufacturer of high technology electronic display devices for televisions, avionics and professional applications. He has steered the Group to its current leadership position by relying on indigenously developed in-house technology. The group is presently focused on the evolving Defence Avionics domain in India. It has a joint venture with Thales France and HAL India and alliances with leading Defence & Avionics players overseas. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He has also the distinction of being a member of Defence Research & Development Organization's Review Committee & Prime Minister's Scientific Advisory Council. He is the Chairman of Offset Committee of CII Defence Council. He has also been the President of Electronic Components Industries Association and served as Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (Northern Region). Mr. Kaura is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. He is the first recipient of Indian Institute of Technology's (Kanpur) Distinguished Alumni Award (1989). The Electronic Industries Association of India and Consumer Electronics & TV Manufacturers' Association have honored him with their 'Electronics Man of the Year' awards. In 1994. The Society for Information Display USA conferred a Special Recognition Award in 2005 for his outstanding entrepreneurial leadership in the display industry in India. Mr. Kaura was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2004 for his distinguished services to the nation, in the field of Science and Engineering. Mr. Kaura holds an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and a Masters Degree in Electronics, from Carleton University, Canada.
Puneet Kaura
Managing Director & CEO
Puneet is a Management graduate from Bentley College in the United States, and has worked with Corning Incorporated, USA and Samtel Electron Devices, Germany before moving to India to build and grow Samtel’s avionics and defence business. Samtel’s joint venture with India’s major aircraft maker, HAL marks a landmark in this business and Puneet has played a very responsible role in developing this JV. Puneet was also a core member of the team that worked on setting up Samtel’s joint venture with Thales – a world leader in the field of defence. Now he is leading the Company to grow in the domains of Defence & Railway Electronics.
He also holds office as Chairman – Delhi State for Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), and Co-Chair – Regional Committee on Defence as well as Chairman – Regional Committee on NCR Pollution at Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Formerly, he has held the position of Chairman – Delhi State for CII. In these positions, he leads all key initiatives on behalf of these committees of CII and SIDM, thus engaging with policy makers, strategic thinkers and industry leaders.
He has put a great deal of energy into building Samtel’s core competence to compete on a global scale, and today Samtel is a supplier and partner to the top global players in the Aerospace & Defence industry. The Company has also ventured into Railway Electronics and is working with leading players in this domain.
Owing to his initiatives in driving Samtel to contribute towards the ‘Make in India’ program of the Indian govt., he was hand-picked by Niti Aayog for Prime Minister’s Champions of Change ‘think-tank’.
Under his leadership, Samtel has been awarded with SIDM Champion Award, along with Frost & Sullivan Hot Investment Opportunity Award, and Indian Innovation Award by a leading Indian organisation. Puneet has also been recognised by Aviation Week magazine as one of World’s Top 40 leaders under the age of 40 in the global aerospace industry.
Rajiv Sethi
Vice President – New Business Development
Rajiv Sethi is the Vice President – New Business Development at Samtel Avionics Limited, one of the leading businesses in the Samtel Group.
He is responsible for seeking new business opportunities in Defense and Aerospace and lead the diversification initiatives of the company in this domain. In addition to this, he heads the Operations function at Samtel Avionics and takes care of the Manufacturing, Supply Chain and HR functions.
Rajiv has done BE (Hons.) and followed it up with a Post Graduate Diploma in Management with specialization in Finance.
Rajiv joined Samtel group as a Graduate Engineer Trainee in 1987 and since then has grown through the company’s hierarchy while working in different functions like manufacturing, maintenance, process engineering, corporate projects, R & D, etc.
Before joining Avionics business group, he was working as part of Plasma Display Panel development team for developing the technology and product indigenously. Prior to this assignment he was working as General Manager (Corporate Projects) and was responsible for evolving and setting up world class, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. Prior to the role in Corporate Projects, he was heading the Operations of one of Samtel group factories as Plant Head.
J.K. Dudani
CEO - Samtel HAL Display Systems
JK Dudani, an Engineering graduate from Bangalore University, joined Samtel Group of Companies as an Engineer Trainee in 1987. While pursuing his Careers, he gained an MBA degree, and also did a Certificate course in International marketing from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi. In a professional Careers of over 26 years, he has held important and key positions in different fields such as production, process, quality assurance, sales, marketing and business development functions. In March 1999, he joined Bharti Telecom (Airtel) to head its international marketing division for export of telecom products manufactured and traded by the company. During his tenure in Bharti, he was instrumental in establishing the presence of Bharti's products in over 25 countries (in retail and institution segments) spread across five continents. He was also nominated to CII National Committee on international marketing. In Nov 2005, he rejoined Samtel Group as Head of Business Development in Samtel Engineering Services, which delivers end-to-end Engineering solutions (CAD, CAM & CAE) to overseas clients in Industrial machinery and Auto verticals. In Jan 2007, he was appointed as the CEO of Samtel HAL Display Systems Limited, which is a joint venture company between HAL & Samtel. His endeavour is to make this JV company scale new heights in becoming a globally competitive business entity.
PM Soundar Rajan
Advisor - Technology
Mr. PM Soundar Rajan is the Advisor - Technology at Samtel Avionics Limited, and advises SA in multiple domains in which SA operates. He is an Electronics and Communication Engineer from College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai, and has done his Masters from IISc in the same field. He commenced his professional Careers in 1973 with LRDE. During his tenure at LRDE he designed and developed digital communication systems. From 1978-1996, he served as part of ADE contributing towards the Flight Testing and LCA Avionics Integration activities. He joined DARE (erstwhile ASIEO) in 1996. He contributed towards the development and integration of Mission Computer and other Avionics systems for the Su30 MKI aircraft under the project, Vetrivale. As the Chief Designer and Project Director of the MiG27 avionics upgrade, he has successfully upgraded the aircraft which is currently in Squadron Service. Mr. PM Soundar Rajan assumed charge as the Director of Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), Bangalore in August 2011. He has contributed significantly towards development, integration and certification of mission computers for Su30MKI, MiG27 and Jaguar aircraft which are all in operational use. During 2011 to 2014, his contributions were towards evolving and implementing EW systems on combat aircraft He is the recipient of AGNI Award for excellence in Self Reliance for the year 2003 and DRDO Performance Excellence Award for the year 2008. He retired from DRDO after 40 years of eventful and fruitful service on 1 st July 2014. He was honoured with a Fellowship with DRDO from Sept 14 to 31 August 2015.