Bangalore-based smart electric start-up Ather Energy has appointed Dr Venkatesh Padmanabhan as its Chief Operating Officer. Dr Padmanabhan will head supply chain, quality, manufacturing, and service delivery at Ather Energy.

After 15 years at General Motors, in 2004 Dr Padmanabhan joined Daimler Chrysler's (DCX) Chrysler Division to support the integration of lean manufacturing in its diverse operations and later also worked at the Mercedes-Benz car division. He came to India in 2007 as managing director of Chrysler's first South East Asia Global Sourcing Centre in Chennai from where the company today sources close to $1 billion every year in automotive parts.

He joined Royal Enfield as Chief Operating Officer in 2008 and rose to the position of CEO in 2011. During this period, with two successful launches of the Classic and Thunderbird single-cylinder UCE- based motorcycles, the company saw a threefold increase in sales and 20-fold increase in profits.

In 2013, Dr. Padmanabhan served as the MD and CEO of EICL (English Indian Clays Ltd) to help recast a 75-year-old Kaolin clay and starch producer into a modern, innovation-driven specialty chemicals company. He moved to Cyient in October 2015 to integrate its acquisition of Rangsons Electronics into extending the detail engineering offerings of its aerospace, defense, rail, medical and consumer business units into complete life cycle offerings.

“Venki’s career has taken him to multiple countries and multiple automotive companies. He has a strong knowledge base of the operational requirements for an automotive company, especially two-wheelers. His network and his experience in the industry is a valuable asset for a young company,” said Tarun Mehta, CEO, Ather Energy. “Ather is a young company, building on a new platform with a nascent to often non-existent vendor ecosystem. Venki’s exposure to vendors and manufacturing processes in India will prove a strategic advantage as we close in on the production of the S340.”

Founded in 2013, by IIT Madras graduates Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, Ather Energy has so far received funding from Hero MotoCorp, Tiger Global and Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny Bansal. The team of about over 200 employees is currently developing an electric two-wheeler, which will be completely designed and made in India. They are presently in their stage of product testing and vendor finalisation for their first product – the S340. Ather is also setting up a charging network with its own smart charging pods. These fast charging pods will be set up initially across its three cities – Bangalore, Chennai and Pune.