Full Glass

,  is the President and MD – Flat Glass South Asia, Egypt and Malaysia, Saint Gobain Glass.
He obtained his B Tech in Civil Engineering (1978) from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Post-Graduation in Management (1980) from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, with focus on Operations and General Management. At Grindwell Norton, a Saint-Gobain Group Company, Santhanam, starting as a Management Trainee, served in various functions such as Information Technology, Operations, Product Development, Sales and Marketing, ending up as a Member of the Management Board. Over the last decade and a half, as Founder Managing Director of Saint-Gobain Glass India, Santhanam was instrumental in the group´s investment of over $700m to create a World Glass Complex (the largest of its kind worldwide in the Saint-Gobain Group).

The group acquired a modern Float Glass plant near Bharuch in Gujarat in 2011 and has created a new Glass Complex in Bhiwadi in the National Capital Region (NCR). The group also has two automotive glass plants in Pune, Maharashtra and Raw Material Processing Plants in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Santhanam is an elected Member of the National Council of CII since 2006. He is active in advocating diversity in the workforce and has been a champion of the newly created ´Indian Women Network´ (iWN) as part of the diversity agenda of CII. In the past, he has been Chairman – National Task Force on Golden Top 100 Companies (GTC 100) Initiative (2014-15).

Santhanam has also been President of the Employers´ Federation of India (EFI) (2009-2010) and Chairman of the PanIIT 2008 Global Conference. Among the many awards he has received include the ´VC Padmanaban Memorial Award´ in the category of ´Business Excellence leading to Development of Society at large´ by Manappuram Finance Limited (2014) and Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa) conferred by Hindustan University (2013).