Charismatic, Constructive and Candid

Dr Suresh has been a treasure trove of wisdom whose life is a demonstration that hard work is the epitome of life. He has been bestowed with many awards including IATA for the young achiever 2008, Indian Achievers 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, in Travel & Tourism, Innovations (2) and India Glory Award, Paul Harris Foundation Award for contribution to Charity and Rotary award for dedicating time and funding projects for the needy. Also, many awards from NITIUDYOG, IISc/ Analytics Society of India, and many more from Amadeus.

Born in a village in Kerala, Dr Suresh later moved to Kochi where he did his schooling from Chinmaya Vidyalaya. He did his graduation from NSS College, Ottapalam and then an MBA from the University of Calicut. This year he obtained his PhD from the MIT Boston. Early in his career, he was in the Hospitality industry for 3 years and since 1991 has been in the Transportation and Travel industry. He also does a lot of philanthropy work by himself and through the Rotary Club.

Being a part of the Indian Naval Sea Cadet in school, he always aimed on becoming a Naval pilot but due to a financial crunch, he wasn’t able to do so. But he decided to stay close to the travel and hospitality industry which would enable him to travel far and wide. He then joined the Transportation industry and hasn’t looked back ever since. He says, “That’s the IDEA behind me being in this industry for so long. I learnt everything from Airport operations to flying a plane while working. I have travelled to 158 countries around the world and lived on 5 different continents.”

His strategy in life has been he says, “Love and enjoy what you do, Innovate (think outside the box) and persevere to achieve your dream. One will fail in the attempt to reach the goal/dream but keep trying. Keep yourself abreast of all the things happening around you in the field you are trying to achieve something and stay ahead of the competition. You will succeed come what may.”

Dr Suresh explains his appetite for business and comments “ I am a risk-taking person. Informed RISK. Risk appetite helps the person to make risk-informed decisions in business. This is important because it is a way to assess the impact of managed decisions and to ensure I am engaged in driving a risk-informed agenda. Risk appetite is the amount of risk I am willing to take in pursuit of the business objectives it deems to have value.”

He provides a realistic insight into balancing professional and personal life by giving some tips and tricks which will ensure high productivity and less burnout. He states:

Time Management: Telecommute or go to work online
Set Priorities: Create a list of the most significant aspects of life including items like family, relationships, work, spirituality, volunteering, staying active, maintaining a social circle or other passions.
Daily Schedule: Create a schedule and try to stick to it.
Be inventive: Learn to be creative and think up possible ways one can meet the urgent priority while still attending to the other.
Working from Home: Change into work clothes in the morning and non-work clothes in the evening.

When it comes to contributing to the economy, Dr Suresh has been working on five startups in the drone and aerospace domain. Some of them are in the last mile connectivity using electric cars and two-wheelers and the last one is a small city project. He has done both conceptualisation and implementation on these projects which illustrates his tremendous reservoir of knowledge and skills.

When it comes to the passion that drives him forward, he states “Passion is a feeling or emotion or desire for something or someone. Passion can also be eager interest in an idea, proposal, or cause, enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activity, to strong attraction towards a person. For me, Aviation is my passion. I can watch planes landing and take off every day, the whole day. It will still leave me breathless seeing the planes. That’s one of the reason’s I love my job and conceptualise and develop innovative products for the Aviation industry. I have an IP in the aviation industry which was the first of its kind. The love for the industry and the job I do drives my passion.”