Management Team
Dr. J. Kelly Truman
President & CEO
Viraj Patel
Chief Financial Officer
Vijay Yadav
Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Managing Director, India
Dinesh Raghhav
Director of Manufacturing & Global Supply Chain, India
Dr. Gilles Champagne
Vice President, Technology and Development
Tirath Khaira
Director of Engineering, India
Dr. Majid Keshavarz
Chief Scientist
Virendra S. Rawat
Chief Strategy Officer & Director, India
Dr. J. Kelly Truman
President & CEO
Kelly Truman has been President and CEO of Deeya Energy since June, 2010, bringing over 25 years of leadership in renewable energy, semiconductor manufacturing and thin film technology. Prior to joining Deeya Energy, Kelly was a founding team member and Senior Vice President at solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, where he led Marketing, Sales, Business Development, Customer Service, Government Affairs, Intellectual Property and Corporate Communications. He was instrumental in each of Solyndra’s major capital raises, in securing its $535M US Department of Energy guaranteed loan and in developing the sales pipeline that led to revenues of over $100 million in 2009. Previously, Kelly was Vice President of Marketing at ReVera Inc., a provider of metrology tools used for critical films and layers in semiconductor manufacturing. Prior to this, over several years he held executive general management and marketing positions in the thermal processing, gate and wet processing areas at Applied Materials, Inc., the world’s largest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. He also has served as Director, Advanced Research Programs while on the Research Faculty, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, at the University of Florida and held technical positions at Conductus, Tektronix, and CVC Products. Kelly holds a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from the University of Notre Dame, and a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida. In 2010, he was given the Distinguished Alumni Award by University of Florida’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Viraj Patel
Chief Financial Officer
Viraj Patel is a seasoned finance executive with over 25 years of multinational experience in technology, life sciences and industrial companies. Viraj joined Deeya as our CFO in 2010. Previously, Viraj has served as a CFO of leading technology public companies such as UTStarcom and Avanti (acquired by Synopsys) where he was instrumental in building strong finance and operations teams in India, China and South East Asia. Viraj also served as Vice President of Finance at Nektar Therapeutics and Chief Accounting Officer at Pall Corporation (New York). Viraj began his professional career at Pricewaterhouse, New York and holds a BBA from Pace University, New York. He is a Certified Public Accountant from the State of New York and is a member of the New York State Society of CPAs and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Vijay Yadav
Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Managing Director, India
Vijay comes to Deeya Energy with strong experience in general management and corporate development, as well as a proven track record of managing high growth in highly competitive markets. He has the distinction of being a leader at the forefront of three different technology revolutions in India. First, from 1999 to 2003, when the internet service provider industry was being opened up in India, he established 3Com and its subsidiary, CommWorks, as leaders in internet access; this business was subsequently acquired by UTStarcom. Next, under his leadership, UTStarcom acted as catalyst for growth of broadband access and established itself as one of the leaders in broadband in the region from 2006 to 2010. Most recently, since 2008 Vijay was instrumental in driving growth and expansion of IPTV (internet protocol television) in the industry, and once again established UTStarcom as a leader for another technology in India. Vijay holds a B.E. degree in Civil Engineering from BITS, Pilani and an M.Sc. in Chemistry from the same institute.
Dinesh Raghhav
Diretor of Manufactruing & Global Supply Chain, India
Dinesh brings 21 years of manufacturing and global sourcing/supply chain experience to Deeya. Prior to joining Deeya, Dinesh was Country Head/General Manager – Global Sourcing & Procurement at Xerox India as part of Xerox Global Sourcing and Procurement corporate team managing global sourcing, supply chain, NPI, contract manufacturing, design outsourcing, procurement outsourcing, corporate procurement services (IT/ITES/BPO/Design Services) and technical support. Dinesh has a strong blend of hands-on experience and outstanding leadership skills as well as a proven track record of being able to guide and motivate teams into working cohesively towards the overall achievement of organizational goals. Dinesh holds a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering (HONS), PGDM in Operations Management and is Green Belt certified in Lean Six Sigma.
Dr. Gilles Champagne
Vice President, Technology and Development
Gilles holds a Ph.D. in Electrochemistry from Institut national de la recherche scientifique, made in collaboration with University of California/Davis, and a Master’s Degree in Chemistry from University of Sherbrooke. Gilles was Chief Technical Officer (CTO) with Nanotecture Ltd in the UK, Sr Consultant of Technology and Management (Canada/Europe) with In-Dev Inc and General Manager and CEO of E-H2 (Energy-Hydrogen) Inc, a company that exploits hydrogen technology. He was with ABB Process Analytics as Research and Engineering Director in the field of quality control instrumentation and software (industrial FTIR spectrometers) and was Technology Director working in lithium-polymer battery development for the automotive and telecom industries (LMP Battery, Avestor). Gilles was previously Project Leader, at the Research Institute of Hydro-Quebec (IREQ), directing a research group in electrochemistry and instrumentation after he started his career at the Research Centre of Alcan International Ltd. He is author of numerous industrial reports and publications and holds patents in electronic design for instrumentation, measurement methods, R2R electrodeposition cell, current collector for battery/supercapacitor and sensor manufacturing process.
In addition to his high technical expertise, Gilles has solid managerial experience in new product development, complex project management/coordination, IP and interdisciplinary team management with a special interest for innovation. Throughout his career he has worked with many key companies and organizations in various sectors in North America and Europe.
Tirath Khaira
Director of Engineering, India
Tirath Khaira has over 20 years of experience in product development, engineering management and power electronics. As Director of R&D at Delta Energy Systems India, a subsidiary of power electronics major Delta Electronics, he was responsible for establishing the R&D capability for the company in India and building up a team to serve Delta’s product development needs for the region. Prior to that, Tirath has led teams and been involved in power electronics product development at Rectifier Technologies, QCS, Panasonic and Sony. Tirath has an MBA from the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK and did his undergraduate studies in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Dr. Majid Keshavarz
Chief Scientist
Dr. Keshavarz is a chemist with extensive experience in the technical and managerial oversight of research and development activities in electrochemical energy storage, solar photovoltaic devices and nanotechnology. Before joining Deeya in 2006, Majid was the director of chemical technology at Intermolecular Inc. and worked on the experimental strategies for high-throughput materials development. An early employee of UltraDots Inc., Dr. Keshavarz served as the head of the chemistry group and was responsible for the development of new nanomaterials for photovoltaic devices. He devised new routes for the production of soluble and functionalized silicon and germanium nanostructures and developed a novel procedure for the production of monodisperse germanium quantum dots employing a template-assisted synthesis. Prior to UltraDots, he spent five years in biotech/pharmaceutical industry at Roche Bioscience, where he worked on the development and optimization of efficient routes for new drug candidates and prepared active pharmaceuticals ingredients in large scale for clinical studies. Dr. Majid Keshavarz obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. For his postdoctoral fellowship in the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids at University of California at Santa Barbara, Dr. Keshavarz studied the chemistry of exotic materials such as Buckminsterfullerene C60, nanotubes, and conducting polymers. He has authored over 50 scientific publications and US patents.
Virendra S. Rawat
Chief Strategy Officer & Director, India
Virendra started his career in the Indian Army in 1968 and worked for 24 years in its telecom arm – the Corps of Signals, being engaged in assignments comprising implementation, operations and management of telecom networks for meeting Army’s operational requirements. After leaving the Army in 1992, he entered the telecom industry and worked with AKG Acoustics, was Head of Engineering and later CTO in BPL Cellular Ltd, moved on to Bharti Airtel as Head of Projects and then CTO, Head of Network Operations, CTO Eastern Region and finally as CTO – Infratel to manage infrastructure leasing operations under the banner of Bharti Airtel’s new fully owned subsidiary – Bharti Infratel Ltd. Virendra joined Deeya Energy in July 2008 as Chief Strategy Officer and was recently appointed a Director in Deeya India. He is responsible for strategizing Deeya’s market entry in the Indian telecom market as well as other developing economies outside India – mainly in Africa and South Asia.
Virendra has a total of 43 years of telecom experience and holds an M.E. in Electronics & Communications from University of Roorkee (now IIT Roorkee)