Varadharajan Ranganathan

Startup Liaison India

Varadharajan (Varadha) Ranganathan is an R&D professional, with nearly 15 years of experience in corporate R&D. Over the years, he has learned and honed skills and competencies in materials synthesis, characterization, and structure – property relationships in materials. After brief stints in an Indian National Lab and TATA group, he moved to Saint Gobain Research India, in his hometown of Chennai in South India. It is here that he transitioned from being a hands-on researcher into a product developer, competency lead and eventually an R&D manager. During these roles, he has provided R&D support to different businesses of SG in India. He received his B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and his MS/PhD in Ceramics & Materials Engineering from Rutgers University, NJ USA. Towards understanding corporate growth strategies and better appreciating leadership decisions, he enrolled in and completed an executive MBA program “Growth Strategies for Business Leaders”, offered by the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata in 2021. He is collaborative and inclusive in his approach to problem solving and enjoys working with cross-functional teams.

With the necessary learnings from corporate R&D, he has been looking for an opportunity to be a part of a team whose mission is to help develop / commercialize technologies for a better quality of life and sustainable living. In this context he finds TDK Ventures to be the perfect destination and looks forward to being a part of our mission to help & create impact scalers. It is a conscious, thoughtful turn he has taken in his career and is looking forward to a lot of learning and fulfillment through value creation.

When not working, he enjoys listening to good music and spending time with his wife and children. He is a trained South Indian classical musician (vocalist), with a strong interest in the ancient language – Sanskrit.