Profile of D.Shanmugasundaram
D.Shanmugasundaram, Managing Partner, Venbro Polymers, a part of Ceedee’s group with an annual turnover of 36 crores. He is responsible for its IT, Finance, Administration & Human Resources Departments.
Academics:
He did his schooling at Montfort Higher Secondary School, Yercaud and SBOA, Chennai.
He is a Chemical Engineering graduate from Annamalai University, Chidambaram and an MBA graduate from Cleveland State University, Ohio, USA. Interested in agriculture, Mr. Shanmugasundaram also heads the group’s agriculture activities. Returning to India in the year 1998, he was heading the production and marketing of “Major” brand refined oil and “Kamadenu” brand vanaspathi. In the year 2000, he started developing the in-house ERP and later spun it into a Software division of the parent company, focusing mainly on Hospital Management Solutions.
From the year 2006 to 2011, he took on the additional charge of running the group’s Indian Oil Retail outlet.
He also manages an integrated farm spread over an area of 40 acres with livestock covering cows, sheep, goat and Desi Chicken.
He is also into organic farming, cultivating traditional varieties of Rice. Currently they cultivate 14 varieties of traditional rice, process and market the same directly to consumers.
The group is also exploring the possibility of establishing a Modern Dairy Farm, Precision Agriculture and Hydroponics to cater to the market needs.
He is also a Director in Ulavan Producer Company Limited (UPCL), with a membership of about 2500 farmers which is focused on maximising revenue and minimising cost, to make agriculture a sustainable proposition. UPCL is also the early proponent of Electronic National Agricultural Market, e-NAM.
Mr.Shanmugasundaram is the President of the Water Management Panel of Olirum Erodu Foundation (OEF), a philanthropic organisation consisting of 73 trustees and a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working on five verticals namely, Water Management, Environment Management, Infrastructure Management, Holistic Education and Affordable Healthcare, to make Erodu-The Best Place to Live and Work. He had serverd as the Vice-President of the Infrastructure Panel since its inception to 2020.
In 2015, Mr.Shanmugasundaram was the Chairman of Young Indians (Yi), a sister organisation of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). Yi, primarily focuses on the three pillars, namely, Youth Leadership, Nation Building and Thought Leadership.
He had been on the State Agriculture panel of the CII during the year 2017-18. Yi also works on fields like education, environment, healthcare, employability, arts (sports & culture) and rural initiatives contributing positively to its surrounding eco system and the Nation.
He is also the Mentor for Leadership at the Yi - Erode Chapter.
He was also the Chairman of Native Angel Network(NAN)-Erode Chapter between 2018-20, which supports entrepreneurs in scaling up innovative businesses out of tire-2 and tire-3 cities. Currently NAN-Erode has invested close to Rs.2 Crores, in various start-up initiatives.
Some of the startup’s the group has invested in are:
1. Happy Hens – A Free range organic Desi Chicken Eggs with no anti-biotic residues.
2. Farm Fresh – A farm to fork initiative, to avoid middlemen and market the products of the farmers directly to the consumers using mobile apps and electric trucks.
3. SP Robotics – A company focusing on helping children learn Robotics, AI, etc., at their own pace through online tutoring and Do it Yourself(DIY) kits.