India, December 2025 — FirstKem has appointed Raghavendra Prasad Mallaiah (RP) as Country Manager, entrusting him with the responsibility of leading the company’s India operations for its specialty consumables distribution portfolio in the global aerospace market. In this strategic role, Raghavendra Prasad (RP) will spearhead growth, deepen relationships with OEMs, MROs, airlines and government entities, and strengthen FirstKem’s presence across India’s rapidly evolving aerospace and aviation ecosystem.
Immediately prior to joining FirstKem, Raghavendra Prasad (RP) served for nearly five years as Head of Business Development India at FDH Aero in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. In this capacity, he led business development for the India market, working closely with aerospace customers to expand FDH Aero’s footprint, build long-term strategic relationships, and support growth in a complex and highly regulated sector. His experience in this role has given him deep insight into India’s aerospace supply chain and customer expectations.
Before FDH Aero, Raghavendra Prasad (RP) was Managing Director at Incora in Bengaluru, where he spent close to a year overseeing the India operations for the business. As Managing Director, he played a key leadership role in steering commercial strategy, customer engagement, and operational oversight, helping to strengthen Incora’s positioning and service delivery for aerospace clients in the region.
Earlier, he spent almost three years with Wesco Aircraft in Bengaluru, progressing from General Manager to Managing Director. During this tenure he led local operations, guided teams in delivering on customer programs, supported revenue growth and helped shape Wesco Aircraft’s India strategy in the aerospace consumables and distribution space. His exposure across these leadership roles further sharpened his ability to align operations, business development and customer success.
Prior to his leadership stints in aerospace distribution, Raghavendra Prasad (RP) served as Vice President at GTN Engineering India Limited in Bangalore, where he focused on consulting for Request for Proposal (RFP) and Request for Quotation (RFQ) responses and Proof of Concept (POC) initiatives. In this role, he worked on establishing and validating technologies to align performance metrics, alert criteria and monitoring functions, determining business unit mission and strategic direction, managing budgets and cost-control systems, standardising procedures for stable operations and profitability, and advising partners on strategic initiatives. He also drove business planning, forecasting and revenue potential assessment, laid down short- and long-term budgets in line with corporate strategy, and recruited, mentored and monitored teams to ensure operational efficiency and delivery against targets.
The earlier part of Raghavendra Prasad’s (RP’s) career was built across engineering, design and technical leadership roles in organisations such as Bell Helicopter, Textron, EASi and Soft-Pro Private Limited. At Bell Helicopter, he was part of the senior leadership team in India, responsible for administration and technical design of military and commercial craft, drawing up processes from concept to delivery, defining quality metrics, meeting deadlines and managing personnel. He handled 12 design projects with an annual budget of USD 50 million, led a core team of managers and over 128 engineers and project managers, and set up the engineering and design team from scratch, including identifying and recruiting around 150 professionals from premier institutes. His roles at Textron, EASi and Soft-Pro allowed him to work on vehicle product assembly documentation, design and technical publication, body-in-white, chassis and interiors design, reverse engineering, data migration and CAD/Mylar conversion, building a strong foundation in engineering, documentation and customer-oriented program delivery that now underpins his commercial and general management leadership.
About FirstKem
FirstKem, LLC is an ISO9001, AS9120B, AC0056 certified distributor of specialty consumables to the global aerospace market. Strategically located with stocking facilities in the USA, UK, Middle East and Asia, FirstKem serves a diversified customer base that includes leading OEMs, MROs, airlines and government entities worldwide. With over 150 years of combined experience, its team comprises some of the most knowledgeable and respected professionals in the aerospace consumables business.
The company stocks and supplies thousands of products from globally recognized manufacturers such as 3M, Aeroshell, Akzo Nobel, Castrol, Henkel, Huntsman, Lanxess, Loctite, Momentive, PPG, Mirandy and many more. Through its global footprint, strong supplier partnerships and deep sector expertise, FirstKem is positioned as a trusted partner for high-quality consumables that support reliability, safety and performance in aerospace operations.
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