Sundar Raman (born ) is an Indian sports business professional. He is currently working with

Reliance Industries Limited Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Its businesses include energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, entertainment, telecommunications, mass media, and textiles. Reliance is the l ...

as its CEO - Sports. He was working for the

Board of Control for Cricket in India The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the principal national governing body of the sport of cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at the Cricket Centre in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. BCCI is the wealthiest governing body ...

(BCCI) and was the Chief Operating Officer of the highly successful

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Founded in 2007, it features ten city-based Professional sports league organization, fr ...

(IPL) from its inception in 2008 to 2015. Raman was appointed as the IPL COO by former IPL Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi in January 2008. He assumed a more powerful position within the BCCI after Modi's ouster in 2010. In November 2015, Raman stepped down as COO of the

. In March 2021, he was named as a consultant by IPL team

Chennai Super Kings The Chennai Super Kings, also known as CSK, are a professional Twenty20 cricket team based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, that competes in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The team was one of the eight debut franchises when the league was establ ...

Personal life

Raman was born in Madurai and then brought up by his parents in

Trichy Tiruchirappalli (), also known as Trichy, is a major tier II city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli district. The city is credited with being the best livable and the cleanest city of T ...

and

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

along with his two elder brothers. He graduated from PSG College of Technology in

Coimbatore Coimbatore (Tamil: kōyamputtūr, ), also known as Kovai (), is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India, metropolitan cities in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyy ...

with a degree in applied sciences. In 1993, Raman got post-graduate management degree in advertising & communications from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Career

Sundar Raman began his professional career in 1995 as a media planner with the erstwhile Hindustan Thompson Associates now J. Walter Thompson. Raman eventually took over as the managing director of Mindshare India, a division of ad group WPP's media agency Group M. In January 2008, Raman delivered a presentation to Lalit Modi, the then Vice President of the BCCI, which eventually led to him being hired by Modi to help him conduct the inaugural edition of the IPL. In February 2008, Raman was officially appointed as IPL COO after a decade in strategic media thinking business working for brands such as

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

and Amex. Along with Modi, Raman was instrumental in shifting the entire IPL T20 cricket tournament to South Africa in 2009. Raman resigned from the post of COO of IPL on 3 November 2015. Shortly afterwards he was appointed as the CEO of Reliance Sport which is part of

. He also owns a 12,5% stake in the increasingly successful SA20, a franchise T20 tournament played annually in South Africa.

IPL Controversy

Raman was at the helm of affairs when the IPL betting and spot-fixing scandal was unearthed in 2013 involving some cricketers,

Team Principal and BCCI President, N Srinivasan's son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, Vindu Dara Singh and a few other individuals. Raman maintained the stand that Meiyappan was not a team official during the ensuing investigation conducted by former Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal. But his contention was thereafter rejected by the report filed by the Mudgal committee. In early April 2014, the court-ordered interim BCCI President for all IPL-related matters,

Sunil Gavaskar Sunil Manohar "Sunny" Gavaskar (Marathi pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, uniːl ɡaːʋəskəɾ born 10 July 1949), is a former captain of the Indian national cricket team who represented India national cricket team, India and Mumbai crick ...

revealed that he is evaluating Raman's role in the IPL scandal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raman, Sundar Living people Businesspeople from Madurai Indian chief operating officers Year of birth missing (living people) Indian Premier League administrators