Ganapathi Ramachandran, 68 years now, graduated from the IIT Madras in 1977 with a B. Tech degree. He is also a fellow of the institute of foreign trade. As the son of Mr. G. Ramachandran of the IAS, who served as Finance Secretary of his State Government and Government of India, Ganapathi in the formative period of the life, had unrivalled opportunities for interacting with senior civil servants, economists, and professionals on political and social issues and thus broadening his interests over and above Engineering education itself. 

With the head start he had, Ganapathi has in the last three decades has rubbed shoulders with prominent men & Women in various fields, at the state and National level. 

Leadership in the Early Stages 

Soon after graduation, he had the honor of promoting the products of India’s largest public sector undertaking, then known as Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ganapathi is credited with establishing BHEL’s first major market outside of India.  

In 1984 he returned to India to become an entrepreneur. 

Ganapathi ventured out on his own and founded a marketing consulting firm. His work on behalf of these companies, which was primarily focused on the power sectors, required close and intensive interaction with senior executives from organizations such as Neyveli Lignite Corporation, Tamil Nādu Electricity Board, and others. 

A lesser-known but remarkable journey 

His leadership was defining as Executive Chairman of Trigyn Technologies Limited, a company listed on the BSE and NSE and a leading player in remote Infrastructure Management.  

The company has a revenue of nearly $150 million, and Ganapathi has created jobs for over 4,000 skilled technology professionals worldwide. 

The business had a $6 million annual revenue and a $2 million debt, when he joined the board. 

Trigyn is a significant player in the Remote Infrastructure Management space, with a revenue of nearly $150 million and dividends. 

The business had a large debt load and a backlog of significant regulatory difficulties when he joined the board. All of these restrictions have been removed from the company’s balance sheet at this point. 

This is a remarkable case study of how a sick, non-compliant company was turned around to become a successful, global business. 

Ganapathi has also served as an independent Director of M/s Orient Green Power Ltd., Chennai, which listed through the IPO route. This pioneer in the Non-Conventional Energy space is involved in the production of wind and biomass power. It is worth noting that the company is a subsidiary of the US $ 10 billion Shriram Group, headquartered in Chennai. 

Apart from Trigyn and Orient Green Power, Ganapathi also plays pivotal leadership roles as a Director of the following companies also . 

1. ELNET Technologies Limited, one of India’s first software Technology Parks, is a subsidiary of Trigyn Technologies Limited and is listed on the BSE. 

Philanthropy & Social Impact 

Ganapathi also has rich and varied experience in the field of social services. As a Rotarian for the last three decades, he has involved himself fully in programmes like eradication of polio and vocational training for young men from poorer sections of our society. 

He went on to become Governor of Rotary during the year 2001 – 02. 

As governor of Rotary International district 3230, covering Chennai and Northern Tamil Nadu, he was in the front and center of implementation of Rotary’s marquee global program for elimination of Polio. That year marked the initiative of getting the average citizen involved in Rotary when the first Chennai Marathon was started during the year 2001 – 02. This was followed by the first Chennai Olympiad. Both the programs have gone on to be a year on year event and have wide participation across the State of Tamil Nadu. 

Working closely with L&T, he laid the basis for skilling a large number of youth in various trades and leading to employment for thousands of people. The poor youth were sponsored by various Rotary Clubs and were trained by Larsen & Toubro and gainfully employed subsequently. 

He has donated over US $25 thousand to the Rotary Foundation to support the global Polio Eradication Program of Rotary International. 

Government Recognitions 

1. Ganapathi’s record of public service was taken notice of, by the then Governor of Tamil Nādu, who appointed him as a member of the Syndicate of the Madurai Kamaraj University for a three-year term.

In January 2006, the Government of Tamil Nādu nominated him to the Syndicate of Tamil Nādu Physical Education and Sports University. 

Government also invited him to serve on the board of Tamil Nādu Corporation for Development of Women Limited. This company monitored the functions of self-help groups in Tamil Nadu 

He was also on the board of Indian Green Grid Group Limited (a stepdown subsidiary of ELCOT). 

Driving an Industry Body  

He was the President of The Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, India’s first organized Chamber of Commerce. 

As President of the Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he led delegations to Myanmar, Vietnam and Israel. These delegations served to promote trade between southern India and these countries, but very particularly the delegation to Israel was noted for the fact that there had been a lot of agreements between Israeli companies and India apart from the fact that Tamil Nadu and Israel are now beginning to work closely on water management, a very crucial requirement for the state of Tamil Nadu. He has also took a leadership role to bring together Industry 4.0 and new age technology by promoting through SICCI a Start Up innovation hub in South India. 

He has since been elected into the National Executive Committee of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) India’s apex chamber of commerce, for a second term and is vice chairman of the Indo – African council of FICCI. 

He has now taken over the prestigious position of chairperson of the IIT Madras Entrepreneurs forum (IITMEF), arguably having some of the most successful alumini of learning institutes of the world. 

Recognizing his wider interests in economic and academic issues, the prestigious Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai has nominated him to its Business Advisory Council. 

A keen sportsman, Ganapathi was a member of the Executive committee of the Golf Club at Kodaikanal. 

Ganapathi has widely travelled around the World covering North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa on professional work. 

Over Sight on CoWIN 

In early 2021, the Indian government began planning for the COVID-19 Immunization Program. The need to orchestrate this vaccination programme, which aimed to inoculate a population of over 1 billion people, led to the development of CoWIN, an end-to-end solution that captured each step of the vaccination process to optimize resource utilization, maximize efficiency, and ensure everyone had access to COVID-19 vaccines (COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network). 

Built in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), NHA, the Ministry of Health and Govt. of India. Trigyn has developed a comprehensive and largely scalable platform, Co-WIN to manage the COVID-19 vaccination registration, tracking and administration to the nation’s billion people.  

• CoWIN is the technological foundation of India’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program, which will be launched on January 16, 2021.  
• CoWIN’s five modules perform the functions of registration, appointment scheduling, identity verification, vaccination, and certification of each vaccinated beneficiary, minimizing dependencies across modules and making technical issues easier to resolve. It is a complete system that records every step of the vaccination process. 
• More than 300 crores vaccinations have been administered on Co-WIN. 
• Co-WIN handles billion+ visits a day with a recorded 3.1 crores visits in a single day. 
• Handled 13.7 million registrations within 8 hours of opening up for 18 to 44 years. 
• Multilingual platform (supports 9 Indian languages) with multiple modes for registration to ensure accessibility for all. 
• Seamless Integration with over 30+ external applications such as Digilocker, Umang, MyGov, Arogya Setu & SMS Gateway, .