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Kineco Group Founder & Managing Director Shekhar Sardessai recalls the company’s journey over 25 years

Over just a quarter of a century, Kineco Group has built itself into a model for home-grown companies. It is among the few players in India qualified to build turnkey products for railway interiors, starting from a 200 square metre facility to a star in India’s composite industry.

Its founder and managing director Shekhar Sardessai started out working for a Pune-based company after completing a diploma in fabrication technology from Government Polytechnic College, Panaji. Aiming to reach his father’s entrepreneurial goal, he founded Mass Kinematics in 1995, manufacturing chemical process equipment from composites at Pilerne Industrial Estate. As the company grew, Sardessai explored multiple opportunities of innovation and technological advancements to evolve in the industry.

Evolving meant building the company as a brand, and years later, it took shape as Kineco – short for Kinematics Composites. There was no looking back.

The pursuit of advanced composites gave Kineco a glamourous identity and uniquely positioned it as a star in the Indian composite industry. This visibility coupled with a reputation for innovation and best practices led to what has become one of Goa’s finest international joint-ventures with US-based Kaman Aerospace. Kineco Kaman Composites India Private Limited became a force multiplier and gave impetus to the Kineco Group.

Kineco has also been supplying world-class composite products to Indian Railways for the last 15 years with several innovative product developments to its credit. The railway product portfolio includes rail coach interiors, toilet modules, aerodynamic front ends, driver cab interiors and hard seating systems.

The Goa-based company has also entered the segment of design to build turnkey railway interior projects for new and refurbished coaches. Its rail division is one of the few in India to achieve the IRIS (International Railway Industry Standard) Certification.

As a brand, Shekhar Sardessai has ensured it has been meticulously built on assured quality, pure innovation and hard work.

On its 25th anniversary, he opens up to VIVA GOA about Kineco’s past, present and future. Excerpts:

What led you to start a company in composite structures considering your family already had a construction business?

I grew up with the dream to be an entrepreneur since my father Ravindra Sardessai was one and my biggest inspiration. Unfortunately, he passed away at 47. It was my ambition to fulfill his incomplete entrepreneurial journey.

I started my career in Pune as a project site engineer for Solcon Engineers, and then moved to Thermax Limited as project engineer. After acquiring some valuable experience in project management, equipment installation and commissioning, I moved to Goa to start something of my own. In the meantime, I decided to work for one of the few multinational companies in the state then, called Titanor Components Limited (now known as DeNora) as product manager. The exposure to an international corporate culture and a sound foundation across all disciplines of a manufacturing enterprise was my biggest asset as I moved into entrepreneurship in 1995.

At Titanor, I got involved with composites and fibre-reinforced plastics as a novel material of construction in various product development initiatives. While Titanor never made composites, it was involved in integrating various electro-chemical systems which used composites. I was technically involved with various vendors in design and manufacturing techniques of composites. It was this experience that crystalised my entrepreneurial vision into an achievable venture in the field of composites. Thus, Mass Kinematics was born in 1995 as an enterprise manufacturing chemical process equipment from composites.

Read the full article in 'Viva Goa' magazine copy.

Viva Goa magazine is now on stands. Available at all major book stalls and supermarkets in Goa.

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