Winning critical acclaim for innovation
Aroon joined his family company Raman Boards – a manufacturer of electrical insulation material for transformers based out of Mysore. In 1996, he took charge of the entire group and set into motion a transformational program of strategic and operational excellence. Raman Boards became the third largest player in the transformer-board business globally with sales in over 35 countries. In 2007, Raman Boards was acquired by ABB Switzerland, the world’s largest power equipment and engineering company
After selling Raman Boards, Aroon retained his highly creative R&D team and set up RamanFibreScience with the ambitious plan of developing a novel battery separator composite suitable for hybrid electric cars, set to dominate mass transportation for a couple of decades. After break-through at the lab level, the company scaled up into a manufacturing plant and successfully took this innovative material to world markets. In 2014, Raman FibreScience was acquired by Hollingsworth & Vose, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of advanced filtration and battery separator media.
This remarkable technical and commercial achievement was done entirely through local R&D talent from the villages and towns in and around Mysore. Aroon’s model of enabling grassroots scientific talent to make world-class innovation happen, has won critical acclaim and was also mentioned in the 2012 international best-seller Poor Economics authored by the MIT Economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.
Aroon now focuses on investing in material science and technology intensive companies and consults for medium and large companies on building innovation platforms. He also sits on a number of corporate boards and charitable trusts, where he supports a variety of social causes especially in education and disability.
Aroon is alumnus of The Rishi Valley School in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. He has a post-graduate degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.