My professional journey began at BrahMos Aerospace, where I spent my most formative years. Working on one of India's flagship defence programmes instilled in me the discipline of precision engineering, an uncompromising approach to quality, and the ability to deliver under mission-critical timelines. Those years laid the foundation for everything that followed in my career.
Building on that foundation, I moved to Adani Defence and Aerospace, where I led the design team for the defence vertical. Leading design in a fast-growing private-sector environment taught me how to build capable teams, translate complex requirements into manufacturable solutions, and operate with the agility that modern defence manufacturing demands.
Presently, I serve as CEO–India of Pro-Hub Hebetechnik GmbH, where I lead the company's Indian defence business and manage the export requirements of our German parent company. In parallel, I also oversee Indian operations and exports for ContainerBau Hameln. In these roles, my focus is on building world-class production capacity and quality-controlled supply chains in India that meet exacting global standards.
What connects every phase of my journey is a belief that the excellence in engineering can not be achieved overnight but is built over the years with a strong focus on improving the core competences in your field of expertise.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your career journey?
After graduating from my college , I was still deciding my career options, but I knew that I am best suited for the core Mechanical engineering. Eventually, my career has moved through three distinct chapters. It began at BrahMos Aerospace, where I learned what it takes to engineer for a national programme — rigour, process, and zero tolerance for error. The second chapter was at Adani Defence and Aerospace, where leading the design team for the defence vertical gave me first-hand experience of building capability at speed in India's private defence sector. The current chapter is at Pro-Hub Hebetechnik GmbH, where as CEO–India I lead the company's Indian business and the export requirements of our German parent company, alongside Indian operations and exports for ContainerBau. Each chapter has built on the last — from engineering, to leading design teams, to running a business end to end.
What inspired you to transition from aerospace and defence to leading operations in global manufacturing?
I would say I have never really transitioned out of defence and aerospace. It is true that a growing share of my work today is on the operations and commercial side of the business, but at Pro-Hub Hebetechnik we have deep roots in both the Indian and European defence industries, with BEL, DRDO, and the Ministry of Defence among our direct Indian customers.
What drew me to this role was the larger opportunity it represents. India is on the cusp of becoming a global manufacturing hub for precision equipment, and that includes the aerospace and defence sector. Challenges of this nature have always excited me and pushed me to keep evolving , this role lets me apply my defence and aerospace grounding to that broader transformation.
What are your key priorities as CEO of Pro-Hub Hebetechnik India?
Pro-Hub Hebetechnik does major business in the automotive sector across the globe, and the defining success parameter in this sector is the time-bound supply of quality equipment every single time. Maintaining quality with increased production rate is Priority No. 1. I am happy to share that Pro-Hub India has doubled its production capability over the last year. We are now ready for Indian Automotive Markets and look forward to manufacturing and delivering complete systems in India for Indian clients.
Building on this foundation, my key priorities for this financial year are:
Developing our sales network in the Indian automotive sector
Adding a minimum of two new customers in India this financial year
Developing at least one out-of-the-box solution for our defence clients
How has your experience at BrahMos Aerospace and Adani Defence shaped your leadership style?
BrahMos Aerospace shaped my fundamentals. On a programme of that stature, there is no room for approximation — you learn a zero-defect mindset, respect for process, and the discipline of delivering when failure is not an option. It taught me that quality is not a department; it is a culture that leadership must live every day.
Adani Defence taught me speed and ownership. Leading a design team in a fast-scaling private enterprise meant building from the ground up, empowering young engineers to take decisions, and staying agile without compromising on rigour. My leadership style today is a blend of the two: aerospace-grade discipline combined with entrepreneurial ownership. I believe in leading from the front, setting exacting standards, and then trusting my teams to rise to them.
What are the biggest opportunities you see for India's defence and engineering manufacturing sector?
I see three converging opportunities. First, indigenisation: the sustained policy push for self-reliance in defence is creating real, long-term demand for Indian design and manufacturing capability, and defence PSUs and research establishments are increasingly open to partnering with capable private players. Second, global supply chain rebalancing: international OEMs are actively diversifying their sourcing, and India - with its engineering talent, improving infrastructure, and cost competitiveness, is a natural beneficiary. Third, exports: Indian defence and engineering exports are growing rapidly, and companies that can consistently meet global quality and delivery standards will find the world's markets open to them. The opportunity is not just to make in India for India, but to make in India for the world.
What challenges do companies face when scaling manufacturing and exports from India?
The biggest challenge is consistency at scale. Delivering one world-class product is achievable; delivering it every month, on time, to identical quality, is what global customers actually need — and that demands deep investment in process control. The supplier ecosystem is the second challenge: your quality is only as strong as your weakest supplier, a lesson that shaped how we developed our own vendor base before scaling up. Third is certification and compliance — meeting international standards, documentation requirements, and export regulations takes patience and sustained effort. And finally, trust: global customers take time to be convinced that an Indian facility can match their home standards. If you ask me what the answer to these challenges is, I would say: patience, persistence and perseverance.
What advice would you give to young mechanical engineers who want to build a career in defence and manufacturing?
First, master your fundamentals — this industry rewards engineers who deeply understand materials, design, and processes, not just software tools. Second, spend time on the shop floor early in your career; there is no substitute for seeing how a design actually gets built, and where it fails. Third, adopt a quality-first mindset — your reputation is built on what you deliver when no one is checking. Fourth, be patient: defence programmes run on long cycles, and the engineers who persist through them acquire expertise that is rare.
This is one of the most exciting times for young mechanical engineers. In some ways, young teams will have it easier — AI can now assist in pointing you in the right direction when choosing a line of design. But beyond that, it is your on-ground experience of what works in the field and what fails that will separate success from failure. Stay agile and adaptable, because the technology around us will change exponentially fast.
What exciting projects or goals are you looking forward to over the next few years?
On a personal level, I am impatient by nature, and I have always valued having data, be it technical or financial, accessibility in real time. My immediate personal goal is to dive deeper into AI and use it to increase the efficiency of everything I do at work. I have been able to learn some things but there is much more to do.
For Pro-Hub India, the roadmap follows directly from the priorities I have outlined: scaling production well beyond our current run rate and broadening our customer base. What excites me most is the push into defence and aviation, where our existing relationships give us a strong foundation to build on. There is one more priority I am less excited to talk about, but which has occupied me over the last few years: the protection of our intellectual property in India. Strengthening our IPR protection is something I am determined to accomplish this year.
My BVR (beyond-visual-range) goal : to make our Indian operations a benchmark for precision manufacturing in India and a testament to the world.