Subodh Kulkarni Senior VP and CTO at Imation

Imation Corp. announced the promotion of Subodh Kulkarni, PhD, to the position of senior vice president of Imation’s global commercial business and chief technology officer (CTO) for the company. Dr. Kulkarni was most recently vice president of the commercial business, manufacturing, and research, development, and engineering (RD&E) for Imation, a position he has held since 2007.

“As Imation has expanded its brand and product portfolio as part of its strategic transformation, Subodh has successfully guided our company’s continued global leadership in data storage across magnetic, optical, flash, and removable/external hard disk drive technologies. He is well known and respected within the storage industry,” said Mark Lucas, president and chief operating officer of Imation.

“As senior vice president, Subodh also leads our global commercial business, which supplies virtually all of the world’s Fortune 500 companies with data storage solutions. While maintaining Imation’s core storage technology leadership, Subodh has also expanded the company’s technology breadth in design and engineering for our growing consumer electronics and accessories business, positioning us well for success as we move forward. We are very fortunate to have someone of Subodh’s experience and passion for technology leadership in this key executive position,” said Lucas.

Kulkarni has more than 20 years in high technology R&D, manufacturing, and global business management. He began his technical career with IBM in 1989 as a research engineer. He joined 3M Company in 1992 as a senior research engineer and in 1996, when Imation spun-off from 3M, moved to Imation where he held a series of technology leadership positions of increasing responsibility. In 2006, Kulkarni was named vice president of manufacturing and R&D in 2007 his responsibilities were expanded to include leadership of the company’s global commercial business.

Kulkarni received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. He received his Master of Science and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds eight U.S. patents and his research on silicon surface chemistry and application in integrated circuit fabrication is published in multiple technical publications.

Kulkarni is a member of the Minnesota High Technology Association Board of Directors.