1990 — 2012
Animesh Prakash
Engineering performance into building materials (mineral wool operations) and heavy industry (iron & steel).
Fifteen years. Four countries. A Chartered Engineer and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with £4M+ in measurable plant value delivered, leading operations across India, the UAE and the United Kingdom — and now in Paris, France.
Chartered Engineer/
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt/
Mineral Wool/
Iron & Steel
15Years of global experience
4Countries lived and led in
£4M+Plant value delivered
21+Furnace types worked on
Career built at
Saint-Gobain
ROCKWOOL UK
Fujairah Rockwool
Rockwool India
Visa Steel
Rashmi Metaliks
01 Origin to present
A Career Built Across Four Countries
From blast furnaces in eastern India to the central process team of a global building-materials group in France — each move added scope: technical, then people, then multi-site, then multi-country.
2012 — 2017
West Bengal & Odisha, India
Blast Furnace Operations
Started as a Graduate Trainee at Rashmi Metaliks in West Bengal, moved through shift management, then on to Visa Steel Limited in Odisha — five years of blast furnace operations and process control, leading a team of 70+ across 250m³ and 215m³ furnaces, and capped by a stint in the Director’s office that added techno-commercial exposure: procurement, supplier negotiation and cost analysis alongside the technical work.
2017 — 2019
Silvassa, India
The Pivot to Stone Wool
Joined Rockwool India as Production & Process Head — the move from iron & steel into mineral wool (building materials) manufacturing that would define the next decade.
2019 — 2022
Fujairah, UAE
Process Engineer to Department Manager
Joined Fujairah Rockwool as Process Engineer across hot end and cold end, then rose to Department Manager with de facto plant-wide responsibility — holding the line on plant KPIs across a 180+ member team, efficiency, safety and output, and delivering energy and recycling initiatives worth over 1.7M AED in combined savings.
2022 — 2025
Bridgend, Wales, United Kingdom
Process Engineer, then Hot End Manager & Process Lead
Joined ROCKWOOL UK as Process Engineer across three manufacturing lines, then held Hot End Manager and Process Lead together — leading the hot end area, all CAPEX projects and process trials, and optimising resin utilisation and melting materials for £1.6M in annual value.
2025 — Present
Senior Process Engineer, Saint-Gobain
Now on Saint-Gobain’s central team — delivering process support to factories worldwide, supporting R&D, and leading greenfield and brownfield project work from design validation through Factory Acceptance Tests (FATs) — the fourth country, and the widest reach yet.
02 By the numbers
Impact, Not Just Tenure
£4M+
Measurable value delivered to plant operations across every country worked in — India, the UAE, the United Kingdom and France — through resin and melting optimisation, energy programmes, refractory projects and recycling initiatives. Every figure below was signed off by the business, not estimated after the fact. AED figures are shown as originally recorded; the combined total above uses an approximate long-run conversion rate.
United Kingdom · 3 lines
£1.6M+
Annual Value Delivered
Optimised resin utilisation and melting materials across three manufacturing lines in the UK.
UAE · Energy & refractory
7% / 700K AED
Efficiency Gain & Annual Savings
Led energy optimisation across LPG, LOX and coke, plus refractory projects, in the UAE.
UAE · Sustainability
16% / 1M AED
Recycling Increase & Total Savings
Initiated and scaled a recycling programme supporting sustainability and cost reduction in the UAE.
03 Global reach
Four Countries Led In. Eight More Supported.
Operating experience is not the same as travel. Each country below meant living there, owning the plant KPIs and answering for the numbers — and from Saint-Gobain’s central team in France, that reach now extends to factories and R&D across three continents.
Lived, Led and Accountable
India IN
United Arab Emirates AE
United Kingdom GB
France FR
Process Support Delivered To
United States US
Canada CA
Netherlands NL
Spain ES
Germany DE
Poland PL
Romania RO
Czech Republic CZ
04 Career progression
Experience
Mar 2025 — Present
Saint-Gobain
Senior Process Engineer, Central Team — process support to factories worldwide and to R&D; greenfield/brownfield design validation and Factory Acceptance Tests
Paris, France
Oct 2022 — 2025
ROCKWOOL UK — ROCKWOOL Group
Process Engineer, then Hot End Manager and Process Lead concurrently — hot end area, CAPEX projects and process trials
Bridgend, Wales
Jul 2019 — Sep 2022
Fujairah Rockwool Factory
Process Engineer (Hot End & Cold End) → Department Manager, de facto plant lead — 180+ member team, full plant KPI ownership
Fujairah, UAE
Nov 2017 — Jun 2019
Rockwool India Pvt. Ltd.
Production & Process Head
Silvassa, India
Oct 2014 — Nov 2017
Visa Steel Limited
Engineer, Blast Furnace Operations & Director’s Office (techno-commercial)
Jajpur, Odisha
May 2012 — Oct 2014
Rashmi Metaliks Ltd.
Graduate Trainee → Assistant Engineer, Blast Furnace Operations (shift management)
Kharagpur, West Bengal
05 Technical range
Expertise
Depth in two heavy-industry disciplines — and the improvement, control and project methods that translate between them.
Hot End & Cold End Process Engineering
Hands-on across 21+ furnace types, fiberising & forming, binder and resin systems, in building-materials manufacturing — including electric melting technology.
Heavy Industry & Blast Furnace Operations
250m³ and 215m³ blast furnaces, raw material handling, refractory, and iron and steel process engineering — leading teams of 70+.
Continuous Improvement
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt; OEE, 5S, World Class Manufacturing (WCM), root-cause and process-variation analysis.
Process Control & Data Analysis
Process Control Monitoring (PCM), Statistical Process Control (SPC), A3 problem-solving, Engineering Change Notes and technical benchmarking.
New Product Development
Fire Stopper, fire boards, hydroponics substrates, and high-compressive-strength, low-thermal-conductivity products.
Refractory & Capital Project Engineering
Refractory design, technical procurement, erection & commissioning, and greenfield/brownfield project work — design validation and FATs — across four countries.
Plant Leadership at Scale
Cross-functional teams of 180+, multi-site and multi-country coordination, KPI and HSE ownership across efficiency, safety, quality and output.
Procurement & Cost Analysis
Supplier negotiation, technical procurement and cost analysis from a posting in the director’s office — the commercial half of engineering decisions.
Education
B.Tech, Chemical Engineering
Sathyabama University, Chennai · 2012
Class of 2012
Chennai, India
Certifications & standards
Chartered Engineer (CEng)
With Lean Six Sigma at Black and Green Belt level, and a working command of the core management-system standards.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt
ISO 9001:2015
ISO 14001:2015
OHSAS 18001:2007
06 The road ahead
Building Toward Global Leadership
Fifteen years of adding scope is the pattern — not the finish line.
The next challenge: P&L ownership and cross-functional leadership at a global manufacturing organisation — building, over the next decade, toward broader executive leadership.
General & Executive Management
Global Manufacturing Leadership
- Technical DepthBlast furnace and mineral wool process engineering, hands-on.
- People LeadershipFrom shift teams to a 180+ member plant organisation.
- Multi-Site ScopeThree UK lines, then central support across continents.
- Commercial EdgeProcurement, negotiation and cost analysis alongside the engineering.
- Next: P&L OwnershipGeneral management of a plant, region or business unit.
07 Beyond the plant floor
Board, Advisory & Non-Profit Service
Fifteen years leading heavy industry and building-materials operations across four countries built the kind of judgment that boards and advisory mandates depend on — in operations, risk, continuous improvement and cross-border strategy.
The ambition now is to put that experience to work beyond the plant floor: a seat at the board table, and advising industrial businesses on the problems he has spent a career solving. A family-led consulting practice in AI-enabled operations and executive search is also taking shape — led by other family members, with his own role kept advisory at most and separate from his current employer. He would also welcome non-profit board service where engineering and education meet.
Conversations are welcome on all of it.
Where he is looking to contribute
- Board Seats — Executive & Non-ExecutiveOperations, manufacturing performance and risk oversight.
- Advising Industrial BusinessesBuilding materials, plant equipment and process turnaround.
- Family Enterprise, In SupportAI-enabled operations and executive search, led by family; kept at arm’s length from his own employer.
- Non-Profit Board ServiceEducation, engineering skills and community initiatives.
Get in touch
Let’s talk.
General management and plant leadership roles, a board seat, an advisory mandate, or a plant problem that needs an experienced pair of eyes — the door is open.