MUMBAI, India — Burns & McDonnell India, a part of Burns & McDonnell, is proud to promote seven exceptional team members to the Principal Group.

Established in 2013 in Mumbai, Burns & McDonnell India has multidisciplinary capabilities across industries like oil and gas, chemical and petrochemical, electrical transmission and distribution, energy/power, water, manufacturing, environmental services, and food and consumer products. Over the past six years, the company has grown sixfold and has been recognized as a Great Place to Work in India six times in a row. Additionally, in 2021 and 2022, it was ranked among the 100 Best Companies to Work For in India.

Principals at the engineering, construction and architecture firm are selected based on demonstrated exceptional performance and technical excellence, as well as an exceptional work attitude and anticipation of future leadership that contributes to the firm’s success.

“The promotion to Principal is both an honor and a responsibility,” says Chad Hotovec, CEO and director, Burns & McDonnell India. “Following a strong year of healthy growth, expansion, and diversification, our newest principals have demonstrated resilience, teamwork, excellence, and an unwavering commitment to our mission, positioning us for outstanding future success.”

Members of the 2022 class of Principals include:

Mahendra Attarde, Department Manager
Attarde has 26 years of experience in the energy and oil and gas sectors. His current responsibility is to manage and lead power plant projects. He excels in estimating, resource planning, system design and contract engineering. He has grown the environmental mechanical team significantly and has led its members with steady resolve through a variety of challenging projects. With a commitment to continual improvement and relationship building, he adheres to the conviction that helping clients succeed beyond expectations should always be a priority.

Kannoth Prakasan, General Manager 
Prakasan fully embraces the firm’s employee-ownership culture and consistently upholds its principles and values. His focus on safety, thoughtful leadership and technical excellence makes him an inspiration to many. His career in the oil and gas sector is punctuated by a consistent focus on knowledge sharing and professional development. As someone who is ultra-sensitive to the needs of his team, he’s an ardent champion for his fellow employees, always challenging those around him to think with a 360-degree perspective and to use every opportunity afforded to them to grow.

Rishikesh S. Kelkar, Department Manager 
Kelkar is a chief engineer in instrumentation and controls. His responsibilities include technical design, bid analysis and documentation. He has experience working in a variety of industries including energy and pharmaceuticals. His leadership style is that of a life coach who always considers the best interests of his team members while looking for ways to strengthen both the firm’s business and his team’s capabilities. Whether it’s working with human resources to hire exceptional future employee-owners or completing team projects that go above and beyond the norm, he enjoys collaborating with others to achieve amazing results.

Shridhar Khadilkar, Department Manager 
Khadilkar is a proven engineering executive with decades of diverse experience in product development and service delivery for the energy sector. He has demonstrated leadership in team building and delivering enterprise-grade services. He does an outstanding job of making sure clients’ needs are always met, and welcomes taking on responsibilities outside of his comfort zone. A recent example includes him volunteering to lead the new distribution modernization team and the underground and submarine cables team.

Khanjari Kumbhar, General Manager 
Keeping environmental sustainability paramount, Kumbhar has worked as a lead engineer on multiple projects in the oil and gas and utilities industries. With 24 years of experience in instrumentation and controls engineering, she shines not only in her technical acumen, but also in her dedication to mentoring her team and strengthening client relationships. She is a key contributor to the firm’s thought leadership program and serves as a coordinator for the Network of Women group at Burns & McDonnell. She makes a measurable difference in the communities where she lives and work through her support of numerous causes.

Sachin Sankhe, Section Manager 
Sankhe is a mechanical engineer with over 18 years of diversified experience calculating estimates and performing site surveys, inspections and internal/external audits. The commitment and ownership with which he has grown his team is a true testament to his belief that client service drives success. He has always valued safety on his projects and promotes a culture of safety awareness across the company. He has been instrumental in the holistic development of his team, expanding at every opportunity the team’s capabilities, strengths and client relationships.

Hemal Shastri, Assistant Department Manager 
Shastri is an IT consultant with more than 20 years of experience. His commitment to delivering outstanding IT support has helped the organization get future ready. In a short time, he has established a robust, yet simplified set of work processes to help IT projects get completed more efficiently. His leadership has helped build strong relationships with the firm’s U.S. counterparts, resulting in the phenomenal growth of the India IT team. This growth has led to the addition of new business lanes, expanding his team’s size and establishing an IT project management office group.

“As we continue to grow in line with our robust expansion plans, our projects continue to get larger and more complicated within and across our many business lines, driving the need to focus on high-quality delivery, engineering tools, data and best practices across the organization,” Hotovec says. “With growth comes exciting opportunities and we can’t wait to see our newest Principals rise to the occasion to meet every challenge.”

About Burns & McDonnell

Burns & McDonnell is a family of companies bringing together an unmatched team of 10,000 engineers, construction and craft professionals, and more to design and build our critical infrastructure. With an integrated construction and design mindset, we offer full-service capabilities. Founded in 1898 and working from more than 60 offices globally, our organization’s success starts with its employee ownership culture. Learn how we are designed to build.