Building Advanced Manufacturing Ecosystems for Sustainable Growth

Mr. Thangam Thennarasu, hon’ble minister for industries, Tamil Nadu, was born in Mallankinaru village of Virudhunagar district. He earned his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering. As a graduate engineer, he worked with SPIC (Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation Ltd.) for about 10 years before his political plunge. Mr. Thennarasu has more than two decades of legislative experience. He was elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly five times starting with his first electoral victory from the Aruppukottai constituency in the 1997 by-election. In 2006, he became the Minister for School Education, Sports & Youth Welfare and Archaeology.

Now, as the Minister for Industries, his ambition is to make Tamil Nadu the leading destination for industrial investments in South Asia. He was lauded for handling the oxygen demand during the COVID crisis in the state. He is a voracious reader and a good orator. His interests include archaeology, ornithology, wildlife, numismatics and Tamil literature.

Mr. S. Krishnan is currently the Additional Chief Secretary, IndustriesDepartment, Government of Tamil Nadu. With a service record of more than 30 years, Mr. Krishnan holds many accomplishments, such as serving as Additional Chief Secretary, Finance to Government of Tamil Nadu, the Senior Advisor in the Office of the Executive Director for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan of IMF, representing Government of India in the G20 Expert Groups on International Financial Architecture and Global Financial Safety Nets, and assisting in preparing the Union Budget as well as the Tamil Nadu State Budget during multiple years, to name a few.

Through his multiple roles as a public administrator, Mr. Krishnan has demonstrated expertise in aspects of policy making, public finance, and socio-economic development issues. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University and Master of Arts in Economics from Annamalai University.

Mr. Cronin is currently Community Curator, shaping the future of advanced manufacturing and value chains at the World Economic Forum. His personal and professional ambitions are to leave this world better than he found it.

He is extremely interested in opportunities focused around the confluence of the private and public sectors and their ability to drive positive change. He sees the efficiencies and entrepreneurial spirit inherent in the private sector as substantial assets to solving the problems that have, to this point, primarily been tackled by the world’s public sector. His areas of expertise include manufacturing ecosystems, digital traceability in manufacturing supply chains, additive manufacturing, sustainable manufacturing and analytical tools such as advanced regression analysis and program evaluation. Ian is an alumnus of the University of Geneve and Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Ms. Fujihara is the Founder & CEO of Sinai Technology that focuses on decarbonizing our world. Born in the countryside outside São Paulo and growing up in the city, Maria’s parents were deep in climate tech before the category had a name. While her mother’s career focused on environmental regulation, her father pioneered carbon trading in Brazil in the 1980’s as head of IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources)— so early few understood carbon markets, including Maria herself.

In 2018, she founded Sinai which focuses on reducing the carbon footprint of global manufacturing companies. Sinai’s customer base now includes Bayer, JBS, VLI, CSN, and many more, encompassing a wide range of sectors: agriculture, industrial materials, meat production, steel, rail, shipping, energy, commodities, mining, and finance. As the number of customers and sectors continues to grow, their emissions are measurably shrinking.

Mr. Menges is Professor of leadership and Human Resource Management, tenured faculty member at University of Zurich, Switzerland, and University of Cambridge, UK. He partners with businesses to do research, and to educate executives about the future of work, skill development in the digital age, leadership, emotional intelligence, motivation, diversity & inclusion and organizational culture. His studies how leaders successfully build institutions and inspire people to pursue collective goals, how people best work together in ways that contribute to their productivity and well-being, and how organizations become future-ready in a fast-changing world.

He provides evidence-based advice rooted in rigorous experimental, archival, survey-based and field research that is actionable in the corporate world. Professor Menges is a founding partner of the HR Valley, a project with The Adecco Group Foundation that is part of the Reskilling Revolution of the World Economic Forum. He also holds keynotes at international conferences with 1000+ attendees and moderates and contributes to panel discussions like Future Workforce Planning Summit, Frankfurt; Zukunft Personal, Cologne and the Risk Management Forum, Monaco).

Mr. Baldassari is the Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations, Component Operations, Strategy and Excellence at Flex. He holds a PhD in Management from Vienna University of Economics and Business. He is excited about working on the leading edge manufacturing technology including automation/robotics, digitization and simulation. At Flex, Paul helps enable its customers to launch world class products in the global market by focusing on highly effective teams and manufacturing in a sustainable way.

Today’s industry is creating products in a much different world than we were two years ago. Labor shortages, canal blockages, component shortages, a global pandemic and countless other challenges have led to a push for regionalization, localized supply chains and the need for more resilient and flexible factories. He argues for a five-point agenda to eradicate risks in globalised business environment viz. – deploy advanced manufacturing technologies, embrace a diverse and visible supply chain, maintain a laser-focus on quality, impeccable and unbroken communication and maintain a team of highly engaged employees.

Pranjal Sharma is an economic analyst, advisor and author who focuses on technology, globalisation and media. He serves on boards of enterprises and non-profit entities which are leveraging emerging technologies for sustainable, equitable growth.

Mr. Sharma leads public discourse at global and national platforms including World Economic Forum, St Gallen Symposium, Horasis Global Meeting and AIMA. He served as a member of the Global Agenda Council at the WEF for eight years. He is a member of its expert network and a regular speaker at Davos. He is also a member of The Outstanding Speakers Bureau and also guides projects on economic forecasting, business intelligence & public diplomacy to interpret policy impact on industry and society. He has written and edited several reports and papers on economic development. Pranjal is a columnist with Business Standard newspaper and BusinessWorld magazine among other publications.

Mr. Sharma’s new book ‘India Automated: How the Fourth Industrial Revolution Transforming India’ is a narrates India’s AI implementation story . His previous book ‘Kranti Nation: India and The Fourth Industrial Revolution’, published in 2017 was the first to chronicle the impact of emerging technologies in India. Pranjal was also the co-author of ‘The Z Factor’.

Barbara leads Schneider Electric’s global Industrial Automation Business and has served on the company’s Executive Committee since 2019.

Barbara joined Schneider Electric in 2016 as Country President of Germany and expanded her scope to Zone President of DACH in 2017 (including Germany, Austria and Switzerland). In 2019, she was appointed Executive Vice President, Europe Operations and a member of the Executive Committee.

Barbara started her career as a development project manager for motors and drives at ABB Schweiz AG. She held various senior management positions in the ABB Group, including regional responsibility as Country Manager Czech Republic, Regional Manager for the Mediterranean in Italy, and leadership of the worldwide Drives Business.

Barbara holds a PhD in Electrical Machines from ETH Zurich, and an MBA from IMD Lausanne.