Karthik Ravi Product Marketing MLCC

March 9, 2022

The MKS|ESI team is excited to introduce you to our new product marketing leader within our MLCC team, Karthik Ravi. He will continue to deliver innovation to our Allegro systems and deliver the best-in-class cost of ownership to our global partners in the dynamic MLCC testing market. Karthik has been with MKS since January 10th and lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and two children.

Welcome, Karthik!

Education and continual learning are an essential part of your life?

I'm from Hyderabad, India. I have Bachelor's degree in Mechanical engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Tech Univ (JNTU) and then immigrated to the United States for graduate school. I moved from India to Ruston, LA, about an hour east of Shreveport. Louisiana to get an MS degree in Industrial engineering from Louisiana Tech.

I'm currently doing my MBA from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and I'll be done in May this year.

Have you always been involved in technology?

Yeah, I have worked for about 6 1/2 years with Phoseon Technology. They make an ultraviolet LED curing light sources. I joined them as a process engineer, and then I moved to product marketing 2 1/2 years ago.

If you had the opportunity to pick the brain of any business leader, who would that be?

I'm fascinated by the success of Apple, and in particular how Steve Jobs brought it back from the dumps in the early 90s. I was in high school at that time, growing up in India. And Apple was like the Super expensive computer. I came across this interview on TV. Steve Jobs was wearing shorts and a t- shirt, and he was talking about product marketing to university students. It was inspiring. How Apple was losing value, and he was able to re-invent Apple's brand and drive value to the consumer. He always stayed focused on delivering value, not just focusing on a feature.

Is there a marketing approach that you find important?

Yeah, it's Apple and Nike as well. You know you when you look at their commercials, it's never about the product, but it's what value the product can provide to consumers. Nike, you would never see them talking just about how advanced their shoes are or price, but they talk about how great athletes are and positioning Nike as a partner to helping them achieve greatness. It is never about raising or undercutting the price with both companies. Neither company would compete on price. It is about more than the price. It's all about creating value

Are there any companies that you look at as marketing leaders or disrupters?

So yeah, there's Tesla. They were early adopters of the electric vehicle technology and how they provide value to the customers from the actual vehicle to how they market their value and even how customers purchase a Tesla. Interestingly, they don't even have a fully staffed marketing department. They don't advertise on social media. They don't even have a Facebook page.

Outside of building and marketing the world's most innovative MLCC technology, what keeps you busy?

I'm a cricket guy. I play in the Oregon Cricket League for a club.

There are two different leagues, and I play in both leagues. One league is with the cricket ball, which is like the hard-shell ball you see the pro athletes play with, and I still play now and then in the league. And there's a tennis ball league which has over 30 teams in the Portland metro area, they play cricket with a hard tennis ball, which is more, just playing for fun. A few of us Dads got together, formed a team, and played for fun. But yeah, we have a pretty good team. We get to the finals every year, so that's pretty awesome.

If I'm not playing cricket, I enjoy playing racquetball.

Karthik, thanks for answering a few questions. I know the marketing communication team looks forward to working with you to deliver value to our MLCC customers and help them push the boundaries of possibility within the MLCC market.