FORGING THE FUTURE IN COPPER

From a single-product legacy to powering global transformers and EVs, Managing Director Rajesh Hegde is steering KSH International with precision, resilience, and reinvention.

- By Amit Shanbaug

When Rajesh Hegde joined his father's copper conductor business in 1997, India's industrial climate was nothing like it is today.

What began as a small manufacturer of paper-covered copper wires for transformers in the 1980's when Licenses ruled entrepreneurship, and scaling up meant battling bureaucratic and market barriers. KSH International has evolved into a global, multi-segment enterprise supplying advanced conductors for power grids, renewable systems, data centres, motors, and electric vehicles. It's a journey fuelled by vision, adaptation, and a belief that manufacturing excellence lies in both patience and precision.

ROOTED IN LEGACY, DRIVEN BY EVOLUTION

Hegde's story is one of mindful evolution. “When my father started, we were a one-product company,” he recalls. However, his father focused on quality and delivery which allowed the company to be a dominant player in winding wires used in the transformer segment. By the mid-2000s, Hegde identified an unfilled niche that is Continuously Transposed Conductors (CTCs) used in large power transformers. Despite limited demand in India at the time, the company boldly invested in the technology, imported expertise from Europe, and bet on future needs. That foresight paid off. As India's power infrastructure expanded, the demand for CTCs soared over the years. “We grew the market before the market existed,” Hegde says with quiet satisfaction. The company now exports to over 24 countries and remains a market leader in high-voltage transformer conductors.