Tapan Rayaguru appointed CEO of KSUM

The Government of Kerala has appointed Tapan Rayaguru as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), the nodal agency of the State Government for building the startup ecosystem in the state, for a period of three years.

Mr Rayaguru, an alumnus of IIM Calcutta and IIT Kharagpur, has more than 25 years of global experience in the technology and analytics services industry leading client advocacy, execution and grooming future leaders. He also seeded and scaled data science capabilities with focus on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Mr Rayaguru has held executive roles in multinational companies like GlobalLogic Inc. and Infosys Technologies Ltd. Prior to his appointment in KSUM, the 50-year-old technocrat was the Global Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Tredence Inc. Tapan, who has a detailed understanding of the global technology and analytics landscape, will help the technology startups to fine tune their products for the world market.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr Tapan said, “I consider it as a privilege to be selected for this role. I expect to take forward the excellent work done so far by Dr Saji Gopinath and his team with help of all the stakeholders.”

Kerala has built a robust startup ecosystem connecting all the stakeholders starting from schools, colleges, professionals, startups, incubators, accelerators, investors, R&D institutes, mentors etc. Kerala has become one of the top startup destinations in the country and the new leadership shall bring in industry collaborations and global connect for the mission.

Kerala has always been a platform for budding entrepreneurs and on the scaling up stage most of them locate to other parts of the country due to scarcity of industries, who could handhold them in the scaling up process.