The Board of Directors of Suzlon Energy Limited has appointed J. P. Chalasani as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in place of Ashwani Kumar who has resigned as CEO of the company with effect from 5th April 2023 on account of personal reasons.

Chalasani had been Group Chief Executive Officer of Suzlon Energy Limited for the period from April 2016 till July 2020 and post his cessation as Group Chief Executive Officer continued as Strategic Advisor to the Suzlon Group.

Chalasani has over 40 years of experience in the public and private sector across the entire gamut of the power sector (power generation projects, transmission, distribution, trading and coal mining). Prior to his earlier stint as the Group Chief Executive Officer of the company, Chalasani was the Group CEO and Managing Director of Punj Lloyd since January 2014 and was responsible for the energy, infrastructure and defence business for the group globally, which is close to US $1.8 billion.

Prior to joining Punj Lloyd, Chalasani had spent over 18 years with the Reliance Group. He joined Reliance Group (undivided) as a Vice President in 1995 and worked on a number of assignments for the group. He also served as the first Chief Executive Officer and the Director on the Board of BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna Power Limited. In 2003, along with Anil Ambani, he was appointed to the Board of Reliance Infrastructure as Director Business Development.

Post demerger of the Reliance Group, Chalasani was with the ADAG group. He took over as CEO of Reliance Power in March 2008, soon after the company completed its big initial public offer. Chalasani created a 10 people team to start Reliance Power and grew it to a 30,000 MW (generating, under construction and under development) company in 2013.

Prior to Reliance Group, Chalasani started his career at NTPC and worked there for 15 years in various capacities, including Special Technical Assistant to the Chairman and Managing Director.