An Inspiring Tale Of An Exceptional Entrepreneur

The Unique Times magazine is very proud to introduce Mr. Jithu Sukumaran Nair, the multi-faceted youth of Kerala who is now settled in Shenzhen, China. Most of his inspiring entrepreneur activity is for his homeland India, and to develop the present-day Indian generation to growth. His life engagements are surely going to startle and inspire you. Mr. Jithu is currently into building the “state-of-the-art” Dynamic Positioning Diving Subsea Construction ships for the oil and gas industry. He has a post graduate diploma in Shipbuilding and Naval Architecture from the Maritime Training Academy, London. He is presently working as the General Manager of Shipbuilding & Design at Ultradeep Subsea of Singapore since 2014. Mr. Jithu, who is also a connoisseur of food, owns franchisee of nearly five Subway American restaurants in Kerala and the master franchisee of Shaan-e-Punjab, the famous Punjabi restaurant. Adding to the feathers in his cap, he has co-produced around two Malayalam movies. And, to flaunt the diversification of his skills, he has been authorized for business development for India by Weichai, the Chinese government-owned multi-billion corporation. He has held leadership positions with Kreuz Subsea, Singapore, and worked with multinational companies such as Technip FMC, Harkand Subsea, and Anglo Eastern Group. He is also one of the youngest Indians in the senior management position in the shipbuilding role to be interviewed by the Chinese government-owned media.

He completed his schooling at Naval Public School, Kochi. He is a graduate member of the Institute of Marine Engineers, India, and holds an honors in Mechanical Engineering, specialised in Marine Engineering from Institute of Maritime Studies, Goa. After completing his studies from Goa, Jithu embarked onto sailing on the Merchant Navy ships. It was in the year 2010, he found his breakthrough in the Oil & Gas Offshore sector as a hydraulics engineer, in the specialized diving support vessels at the  subsea, where divers goes into 300 metres depth to do inspection, maintenance, repair and installation; beyond 300 metres it is done by work-class robotic Remote Operated Vehicles (ROV) up to 4000 metres. And, then, again in the year 2011, he joined as a Project Commissioning Superintendent in a new building subsea vessel at Singapore, and in 2013 as the first Project Manager for the first state-of-the art diving vessel built in China for a Singapore owner. He went to China for a year in between, and then back to Singapore, and from 2016 he is staying at Shenzhen, near Hong Kong in China.

Meanwhile, around the 2013s, he started a franchisee of Subway in Kerala; he owns over five branches at Kochi and Trivandrum now. Mr. Jithu had a stint with Dominos and Pizza Hut while in India as a part time delivery boy, which indeed was an inspiration to own a franchisee of Subway later. Recently, he grabbed the master franchisee for a Punjabi restaurant named Shaan-e-Punjab. Mr. Jithu is extremely keen in seeing our country developed, and strive to do every bit he can in generating employment here. India has a fleet of 37 years old giving vessels used in the Indian oil and gas, and for that reason, Mr. Jithu met the Petroleum Minister to explain the relevance of new vessels compared to 30 plus years old vessels to bring in India by removing the aged Indian fleet used by Indian oil companies, and is also trying to bring one of this high tech vessel to Indian oil field.

His current employer, Ultradeep, is engaged in the offshore subsea diving and the construction of Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicles (ROV) for the Oil & Gas industry. In this role he developed design for the state-of-the-art high-tech diving subsea construction vessels with partners from Norway such as Marin Teknikk design, Salt Design, Rolls Royce Norway, ABB, Kongsberg, and Wartsila. He also has extensive negotiation experience with commercial shipyards and other manufacturers. He is still building the high tech diving vessels for Ultradeep for more than 600 USD million. He is also into designing and developing new concepts for 650m diving working closely with DNV & Salt design, Norway. He wholeheartedly thanks Mr. Sheldon Hutton, the founder of Ultradeep, the Ex-vice president & co founder of Kreuz subsea in being instrumental in accelerating the successful journey of his life. They had been building together the state-of-the-art, hi-tech and the most advanced diving subsea construction vessels (DSCV) in the world.

Mr. Jithu Sukumaran Nair always dreamt of starting a tech company, which would provide interesting solutions on green energy which would add value to the environment and economy. He observed that China brings in more than 30 million electric scooters in China each year. Later, NIU introduced Smart electric scooters came into picture, with GPS tracking, inbuilt App etc, which was sold off in tens of thousands in the very first month itself. They are the No.1 electric scooter company in the world in just 3 years and now listed at the NASDAQ stock exchange is US as well. This triggered Jithu’s brilliant entrepreneurial brain, as he thought of introducing such scooters in India. He immediately got in touch with the co-founder and chief designer of that company, and who later joined a leading design company in Austria another giant. Jithu, with his gigantic dream and passion, pursued meeting the founder & CEO for his dream come true. Even though, initially, they were extremely doubtful about how Jithu can pull this off as an individual, his determined persistence made him successfully sign a project with the Austrian company. The Austrian company is the design partners, who would do the research & development, design and brand development for India. He is very particular about the quality and technology. Hence, an in depth field research was done in several selected locations in India. He has done all research and development and is on designing the prototype for this new electric smart scooter, the business which will target major markets in Asia and Europe as well. The scooters feature a new axial flux motor designed in Switzerland that allows for greater speed, longer range, a smaller size, lower weight, and more torque, combined with the smart scooter’s advanced user communication, reporting and performance features. This will be a lightweight high performance e-scooter with axial flux motor (which is now not present in the mass market), removable twin batteries for longer range with an intuitive App including GPS with a stunning design. The one year long extensive customer and target audience research his company has done in India has extensively contributed to the development of a model based on practicality and lifestyle. He personally underwent the brand and product positioning workshop held at Austria several times which took him through learning how to make a unique brand, insight for strategic product management, identification of future business advancements, information/buying/usage behavior, planning and recruiting participants and other major elements.

The project has entered its phase 5 now, which is engineering and prototype development phase. They are now identifying a right location for setting up a manufacturing unit in India. State governments, which are positively supportive to green energy and an EV company are the ones who are keenly sought out and finalised. Talks are going on, for the project to be launched in India, hopefully the company launch in three months. This is going to be a star project exclusively under the Make in India initiative. This scooter will bring in fun, joy and excitement in riding a scooter, giving utmost mileage, reliability and servicing advantages. The endeavour will improve and save environment situation by reducing pollution. The company optimistically is looking forward to “The new Indian generation to shape their own future and drive positive change in India”.

With his passion for design and shipbuilding he himself with his godfather Sheldon Hutton, Mr. Jithu is currently designing his 7 star Ultra Luxury Polar Expedition Cruise yacht to accommodate over 416 passengers and nearly 200 crew with his partner RollsRoyce Marine, Norway, the unique vessel to feature all kind of luxury including a casino, restaurants, lounges and  a 500m Submarine for exploring the underwater kingdom.

Mr. Jithu Sukumaran is an ardent entrepreneur and a loving family man. He loves India to the core of his heart and would like to utilize his knowledge for the current Indian generation -for their upliftment and development.

His wife, Anju, who used to work with Yahoo and Infosys, is now a homemaker. His lovely daughter, Viaga, is a great encouragement, amidst a very busy schedule. He is always supported by the blessings of his parents Mr. N Sukumaran Nair & Sreekala S Nair, who has always guided him through the right path. In his words, his parents are the one who changed a  little naughty boy like him to a  god-fearing boy, who ardently believes and respects the concept of “MATHA, PITHA, GURU, DAIVAM”!