From a middle-class family with no technological background to founding one of India’s fastest-growing power companies — the story of Su-Kam’s founder.
PowerLine, one of India’s longest-running power-sector magazines, profiles Kunwer Sachdev, the founder and managing director of Su-Kam Power Systems Limited — the man who, in a remarkably short span, helped push the company from a start-up to one of the fastest-growing firms in the country.
A self-made founder
What makes the story notable, PowerLine points out, is how unlikely a candidate Sachdev was to reshape a technology business. Born into a middle-class Delhi family with no technological background, he holds a degree in mathematical statistics and law from Delhi University. Before power backup, he ran a cable-television business. It was in 1998, spotting an opening in an underserved and disorganised market, that he ventured into power-backup solutions and set up Su-Kam — a company whose operations would eventually span some ninety countries.
A record of firsts
Under Sachdev’s leadership, Su-Kam built one of the strongest innovation records in its industry. The company filed more than a hundred patents for technology and design in the power-backup space — the highest for any Indian company — and launched the world’s first plastic-body inverter, a product that went on to be declared an “Innovation of the Decade” by India Today. For Sachdev, those firsts were never accidental; they were the output of a deliberate, well-funded research-and-development culture he insisted on building.
“These innovations were possible only due to the robust research and development unit of Su-Kam. Innovation and sophistication in products is my passion.”— Kunwer Sachdev
Betting on solar
Even in 2017, Sachdev told PowerLine he saw the biggest scope for growth in solar power. He led the development of innovative off-grid and on-grid solar solutions designed to serve a wide range of consumers — from households to institutions — positioning Su-Kam not merely as an inverter company but as a broader clean-energy business for a country hungry for reliable power.
On the state of the power sector
Sachdev used the interview to make a wider point about India’s development. Uninterrupted electricity, he argued, is critical to the country’s economic growth, and India still lacked the infrastructure to meet fast-rising demand. He stressed the importance of renewable energy in closing that gap and reducing dependence on conventional fuels — a view that has only looked more prescient in the years since.
Why PowerLine profiled him
For a magazine that covers the people shaping India’s power industry, Sachdev was an obvious subject: an outsider who professionalised an entire product category, exported Indian engineering to dozens of markets, and kept pushing the sector toward cleaner technology. The profile captures him at the height of that influence — founder, innovator, and self-described believer that the best products come from relentless investment in ideas.