Suzlon board appoints J P Chalasani as the new CEO after Ashwani Kumar's exit

Wind and turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy today said that it has appointed JP Chalasani as the company's new chief executive officer. The company added that Ashwani Kumar, who was the CEO until recently, has resigned from his post, citing personal reasons. As per a BSE filing, Kumar's resignation as CEO will come into effect from April 5 this year.

In a meeting held on April 4, the board of directors approved the appointment of Chalasani as the CEO and one of the key managerial personnel of the company to act as the group CEO, with immediate effect, i.e. from April 5, 2023, the filing stated.

From April 2016 to July 2020, Chalasani was the group CEO of Suzlon and, after that, continued as Strategic Advisor to the group.

Chalasani comes with over 40 years of experience in the public and private sectors across the entire gamut of the power sector (power generation projects, transmission, distribution, trading and coal mining).

Prior to his stint with the clean energy solution provider as the Group CEO, Chalasani was the Group CEO and Managing Director of Punj Lloyd, an international conglomerate offering services in energy and infrastructure along with engineering and manufacturing capabilities in the defence sector. He was responsible for the energy, infrastructure and defence business for the group globally, which is close to $1.8 billion.

Before joining Punj Lloyd, Chalasani had spent over 18 years with the Reliance Group. He joined Reliance Group (undivided) as a Vice President in 1995 and worked on a number of assignments for the group.

As per the filing, he also served as the first CEO and the director on the board of BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (now known as Reliance Infrastructure Ltd) and converted it into an infrastructure company from a power distribution company

In 2003, he was appointed to the board of Reliance Infrastructure as director of business development along with Anil Ambani. Post-demerger of the Reliance Group, Chalasani was with the ADAG group, the filling states.

He took over as CEO of Reliance Power in March 2008, soon after the company completed its big initial public offer.

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