Pranav Kumar Suresh has been appointed the new Chief Operating Officer of Startup Village, Kochi, taking over from Sijo Kuruvilla George who will be moving to the Board of Directors.
Pranav will take over as the CEO of India's first mobile-internet business incubator from July this year.
"I am glad to have had an opportunity to help Startup Village navigate through its nascent stages", said Sijo, the founding CEO of the incubator.
"The role change will give me a chance to focus on the larger ecosystem challenges and issues faced by the organisation", he said.
Pranav, a graduate from IIM, Calcutta (IIM-C), had joined Startup Village as COO 14 months ago. Before joining Startup Village, he was working with the accelerated leadership programme at Hinduja Group company Ashok Leyland.
"I am truly excited to bring the operational skills that I have gained in my career so far to Startup Village", a press release quoting Pranav said.
He said he was looking forward to the successful implementation of key operational targets for 2016.
Startup Village's big projects, like the 'Landing Pad' being set up in Silicon Valley, will require focused efforts by Sijo and hoped his new role will give him an added advantage in addressing greater challenges, said Sanjay Vijaykumar, Chairman, Startup Village.
Kris Gopalakrishhan, Chief Mentor, Startup Village said Pranav's operational blueprint for the incubator had been approved by the Board for implementation.
The team's goal is to make Startup Village one of the world's top 10 destinations for start-ups.
For the next 2 years, the organisation has set a number of operational targets, including setting up of the Fab Labs in participation with the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, Boston; implementing the Raspberry Pi programme for schoolchildren; executing the seed fund programme; rolling out the Startup Village App; setting up Boot camps in 500 colleges; and scaling up the infrastructure facility to 3,00,000 sq ft from the existing 15,000 sq ft.
