Sreekumar Balasubramanyam: A Construction Technology Expert
Sreekumar Balasubramanyam
CEO & Managing Director
Give a brief account of your professional journey.
Having pursued PGDM from Goa Institute of Management, I started my career as a fresh postgraduate campus recruited into the management trainee cadre (for sales of steel buildings) of a multinational, that was into steel building construction. For 20+ years of my career, I majorly worked in multinationals that were into steel construction in the civil engineering field. It was a conscious call to move to infrastructure space and into pure civil construction which led me to take up my current job at Freyssinet Menard India, a part of the largest civil engineering firm globally VINCI constructions, it is a dream job for any civil engineer to be a part of VINCI.
Tell us about your leadership approach and success mantra so far in your journey.
My leadership approach has been largely based on trust and integrity. I believe one of the greatest qualities a leader should have is empathy, work done with great motivation and good morale really does inspire teams to do more than they could ever imagine. If you need a performing team, you can achieve it through strict control, protocol, and discipline, but an over achieving team only comes from autonomy,
freedom, and trust.
Define Freyssinet Menard India as an organization and its position in the market.
FMI has evolved from 79 years of innovation, technology, sustainability, and deep-rooted values. Founded by Eugene Freyssinet, the inventor of post tensioning, Freyssinet brings together an unrivaled range of civil engineering skills. At Freyssinet, as a general contractor or subcontractor, we contribute to constructing and repairing structures across five continents through a network of 60 subsidiaries.
We are the pioneer and inventor of Prestressing technology, our experienced engineers, material science specialists, and certified technicians strive to meet the needs of our clients. Our customer-centric approach, placing people’s safety and well-being at our heart, and our commitment to reducing our environmental footprint make us one of the industry leaders in addressing today’s challenges.
What are the factors you look into when developing effective corporate growth strategies?
We follow a holistic approach while developing an effective and long lasting corporate growth strategy, which means creating a win-win scenario for every stake holder involved. Our people are our assets and we emphasize upskilling them with nonstop technical as well as project training while enforcing the highest grade of safety on-site. Our focus on climate, circular economy, and biodiversity is constant not just on our worksites, but also to help our customers improve the environmental footprint of their infrastructure projects, through our sustainable technologies. Also, CSR is as important to us as our performance. When we say Bridges to Prosperity, we mean concrete actions we take to improve the lives of less fortunate communities.
What are the best industry practices you bring into the company to help it stay afloat among its competitors?
Being pioneers and inventors of
Define Freyssinet Menard India as an organization and its position in the market.
FMI has evolved from 79 years of innovation, technology, sustainability, and deep-rooted values. Founded by Eugene Freyssinet, the inventor of post tensioning, Freyssinet brings together an unrivaled range of civil engineering skills. At Freyssinet, as a general contractor or subcontractor, we contribute to constructing and repairing structures across five continents through a network of 60 subsidiaries.
We are growing our company at an extremely thrilling rate, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication, drive, and determination of our team.
We are the pioneer and inventor of Prestressing technology, our experienced engineers, material science specialists, and certified technicians strive to meet the needs of our clients. Our customer-centric approach, placing people’s safety and well-being at our heart, and our commitment to reducing our environmental footprint make us one of the industry leaders in addressing today’s challenges.
What are the factors you look into when developing effective corporate growth strategies?
We follow a holistic approach while developing an effective and long lasting corporate growth strategy, which means creating a win-win scenario for every stake holder involved. Our people are our assets and we emphasize upskilling them with nonstop technical as well as project training while enforcing the highest grade of safety on-site. Our focus on climate, circular economy, and biodiversity is constant not just on our worksites, but also to help our customers improve the environmental footprint of their infrastructure projects, through our sustainable technologies. Also, CSR is as important to us as our performance. When we say Bridges to Prosperity, we mean concrete actions we take to improve the lives of less fortunate communities.
What are the best industry practices you bring into the company to help it stay afloat among its competitors?
Being pioneers and inventors of
technology with a robust team, our skilled people, their safety, and well being are at our heart, HSE policies and the golden rules we follow on our worksites, in our workshops and offices, an inclusive workplace, and our commitment to reducing our environmental footprint helps it stay afloat among its competitors in the industry.
What is your anticipation regarding the future changes in the market and how do you plan to help the company invest its time in moving forward?
The market is highly responsible for propelling India’s overall development and enjoys intense focus from the Government for initiating supportive policies. The need for construction project management software, apps and other technological tools is no longer a passing trend but a need of the hour.
We are growing our company at an extremely thrilling rate, and it wouldn’t have been possible without our team's dedication, drive, and determination. We have been consciously strengthening our sales and business development team to ensure that the success is not short lived, hence with a strategy in place we are aiming for sustained growth for our team, complementing the stupendous performance delivered by our operations team, and thus are relishing overall customer delight at our project sites.
Tell us about your future plans.
Well, I find this journey in the infrastructure industry in India to be a great motivator for a person like me. It is at the cusp of such an explosion in terms of growth and development which India has never seen before. The technology, techniques, and ingenuity required for such a feat is some thing that Freyssinet Menard India truly possesses and I believe it will be a privilege to be a part of the India infrastructure story in the coming times with our company.
Sreekumar Balasubramanyam, Managing Director & CEO, Freyssinet Menard India
He holds 20+ years of experience building and managing high-performance sales & marketing teams, operations & project management, and developing creative business go-to-market strategies in multinational corporations.
•Hobbies:Poetry & Music
•Favorite Cuisine:Kerala Cuisine
•Favorite Book:Straight from the Gut by Jack Welsh
•Favorite Travel Destination:
London, UK
What is your anticipation regarding the future changes in the market and how do you plan to help the company invest its time in moving forward?
The market is highly responsible for propelling India’s overall development and enjoys intense focus from the Government for initiating supportive policies. The need for construction project management software, apps and other technological tools is no longer a passing trend but a need of the hour.
We are growing our company at an extremely thrilling rate, and it wouldn’t have been possible without our team's dedication, drive, and determination. We have been consciously strengthening our sales and business development team to ensure that the success is not short lived, hence with a strategy in place we are aiming for sustained growth for our team, complementing the stupendous performance delivered by our operations team, and thus are relishing overall customer delight at our project sites.
Tell us about your future plans.
Well, I find this journey in the infrastructure industry in India to be a great motivator for a person like me. It is at the cusp of such an explosion in terms of growth and development which India has never seen before. The technology, techniques, and ingenuity required for such a feat is some thing that Freyssinet Menard India truly possesses and I believe it will be a privilege to be a part of the India infrastructure story in the coming times with our company.
Sreekumar Balasubramanyam, Managing Director & CEO, Freyssinet Menard India
He holds 20+ years of experience building and managing high-performance sales & marketing teams, operations & project management, and developing creative business go-to-market strategies in multinational corporations.
•Hobbies:Poetry & Music
•Favorite Cuisine:Kerala Cuisine
•Favorite Book:Straight from the Gut by Jack Welsh
•Favorite Travel Destination:
London, UK