April 22, 15.50 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
Chennai: April 20, 2016
The former Chief Financial Officer of AirAsia India, Vijay Gopalan has joined Updater Services Limited (UDS), India’s premier and largest Integrated Facilities management and Business support Services Company, as its new Chief Executive Officer.
A Chartered Accountant with over 16 years of experience, Vijay Gopalan will be responsible to charter an accelerated growth path for UDS in the country. He will help grow the business strategically through adding new service lines and diversification.
Prior to joining UDS, Vijay Gopalan had served as the Chief Financial Officer at AirAsia India. He was one of the youngest aviation CFO and he successfully managed the financial operations of the Company for two years. Indulging in every aspect of running an airline, he was instrumental in keeping the costs in control
Before joining AirAsia India, Vijay Gopalan had served as Finance Controller for the India operations of the Compass Group, a fortune 500 and a FTSE 100 Company.
Vijay had started his career with Ernst & Young and worked with them for 8 years.
T. Raghunandana, Chairman and Managing Director, UDS Facilities Services commented on the appointment, “I am really happy to welcome Vijay Gopalan to the UDS family and am looking forward to his contribution to growth of the company. I am confident that he will help scale UDS to greater heights.”
On joining UDS Vijay Gopalan said, “I wish to work closely and complement the visionary promoter, Mr Raghunandana who has built this massive organization of over 40,000 employees and work towards re-inforcing ourselves as the most preferred service provider. The facilities management services market in India is set to grow at over 30% in the next few years and this scenario adds dimension to the growth of UDS which is already the market leader in this industry. I am very excited to be able to take this brand to newer vistas and also generate more employment in India by way of our aggressive growth plans.”
Little known facts about Vijay Gopalan include the fact that he is a first attempt CA and secured the All India 26th Rank in the CA Foundation examination. He was a faculty for MBA graduates at Loyola Institute of Business Administration as well as for CA students at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He has acted in a Tamil feature film, was a finalist in the RJ hunt conducted by Radio Mirchi and is also a Gold medalist at the South Asian Universities music festival. An Avid Cricket and football follower, he used to practice at the MRF Pace foundation for fast bowlers.
ABOUT UDS FACILITIES SERVICES
Updater Services (P) Limited (UDS) is India's premier and largest Integrated Facilities Management and Business Support Services company with a strong workforce of over 40,000 spread across the country with a strong branch network. Incorporated in 1985 and headquartered at Chennai – UDS is India’s premier and largest Pan India Facilities Management company managing in excess of 150 million sq.feet of space - offering the best in class services across all industries . Supported by the latest CAFM (Computer Aided Facilities Management) Systems and Platforms with integrated packages in SAP for all backend business processes - UDS utilizes the latest state of art technology to deliver premium services across all industry verticals.