India-born Pranav Mistry has reportedly been promoted to vice-president of Samsung Electronics.
The South Korean company as part of restructuring has crowned 33-year-old Pranav Mistry, as vice president (Global operation) of Samsung Electronics, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Prior to this promotion, Mistry was Vice President of Research & Development and the head of Think Tank Team based in Silicon Valley, USA.
Samsung's new move is a part of restructuring process to arrest the slide of profits margins of company's cash cow Mobile division. Since the launch of Galaxy S5 early this year, the company's revenue has declined uncontrollably.
The 2014 flagship model - Galaxy S5 - reportedly failed to live up to its reputation.
Adding to the woes, Apple released bigger iPhone 6 (4.7-inch) and iPhone 6 Plus (5.5-inch), eating away some market share from Samsung in niche high-end smartphone segment, while emerging Chinese firm, Xiaomi with its dirt-cheap feature rich Mi-series devices has pushed Samsung to the wall in mid-range and budget smartphone sector.
Squeezed from both sides by Apple Inc and Xiaomi, Samsung's recent Q3 earning saw a staggering 60% plus drop in the profit margins.
With Pranav Mistry at the helm of Samsung Electronics , the company hopes the infusion of young blood will drive the innovation process to tackle the current predicament in its mobile division.
[Also read: Project Zero: Samsung Galaxy S6 Release Date, Specifications; What we Know so Far]
With the announcement, Pranav Mistry becomes fourth high-profile Indian to head top global technology companies. Just a couple of months ago, Sundar Pichai was elevated to Senior Vice-president & head of Android, Chrome and Apps in the Search engine giant, Google. Just one rung below CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Larry Page.
[Read More: Sundar Pichai Gets New Designation at Google; Will he Become Next CEO?]
After completion of Microsoft's acquisition of Devices & Services business of Nokia in April this year, the Finnish company officially nominated New Delhi based Rajeev Suri as President and Chief Executive Officer (effective from 1 May, 2014).
In February, Hyderabad based Satya Nadella was anointed as the new CEO of Microsoft Corp.
[Read More: Indian American Satya Nadella Crowned as new Microsoft CEO]
Who is Pranav Mistry?
For the uninitiated, Pranav Mistry was born and brought up in Palanpur, a city of Gujarat, western state of India. He completed his Bachelor Degree of Computer Science at Nirma Institute of Technology.
He also holds a Master's degree in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and a Master of Design from Industrial Design Center, IIT Mumbai.
Prior joining Samsung, he worked as UX Researcher at Microsoft.
In 2012, he then joined Samsung as the Director of Research. Later in 2013, he first hosted an event to launch Galaxy Gear smartwatchin Berlin.
Pranav Mistry is also a prolific inventor. Some of his high-profile projects include SixthSense. its a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.
Others works include Mouseless – an invisible computer mouse and SPARSH – a novel way to copy-paste data between digital devices.
Quickies – intelligent sticky notes that can be searched, located and can send reminders and messages.
Blinkbot - a gaze and blink controlled robot; a pen that can draw in 3D; and a public map that can act as Google of physical world and the list goes on.
Pranav Mistry is a big fan of PM Modi:
As previously said Pranav Mistry is from Gujarat and expectedly is a big fan of Narendra Modi, current Prime Minister of Republic of India.
In an interview with The Economic Times, back in June, he expressed interest in joining the Modi's advisory team.
"I am waiting for him (Narendra Modi) to pop the question... and ready to say bye to my lab," "I am keen to serve one-sixth of the world's population where the miracles of science and technology would multiply manifold for betterment of mankind," he said.
But with the new assignment at Samsung, now it looks like Mistry has too much responsibility at hand and won't be returning home any time soon.
Pranav Mistry's Achievements include:
- Nominee for Forbes India's Person of the Year (2009)
- Young Indian Innovator 2009 award, Digit Magazine
- For his work on 'SixthSense', he received the prestigious -'Invention of the Year' (2009) award by Popular Science.
- He was also named in the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35 (2009), by MIT's Technology Review.
- Netexplorateurs of the Year 2010 award, Netexplorateurs Grand Prix 2010, France
- Few years ago, he was listed in 50 Most Creative People of the Year (2010), CREATIVITY 50
- For his extensive innovative works, he was awarded -Young Alumnus Award (2012), IIT Bombay
- Last year, Pranav Mistry was accorded Young Global Leader (2013) Award, by Geneva based World Economic Forum
