Tata Sons, the promoter holding company of the Tata Group, on Monday announced the appointment of Gopichand Katragadda as Group Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Mr. Katragadda will join the group on August 3, 2014 and will report to the group Chairman, Cyrus Mistry.
A statement from Tata Sons said Mr. Katragadda will be responsible for technology at the group level and he will share his expertise in managing R&D operations, leveraging cross-company synergies, creating technology strategies for white spaces and acting as an evangelist for innovation across group companies.
He holds MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Iowa State University, USA. He was selected as a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology in 2014.
Mr. Katragadda was earlier Managing Director of the GE India Technology Centre heading a team of over 5,000 engineers and scientists. He spent 12 years with GE based at the John F. Welch Technology centre in Bangalore. Before joining GE, he worked with Karta Technologies, San Antonio, Texas as vice president – R&D. He was also an Adjunct professor at the University of Texas and served on the Board of Directors of Texas Public Radio.
Further, he served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of GE-BEL and is on the Industry Advisory Board of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Mr. Katragadda has over 30 publications and five patents and has authored a book on innovation, `Smash’. He serves on the Government of Karnataka’s Vision Group on Information Technology and is an advisor to various industry bodies.
