Our Team
Existential (Astitva) Aerospace
Leadership Team
Dr. Bala Madhan (PhD) is an aerospace industry veteran with over two decades of leadership experience in solid, liquid and hybrid rocket motor development.
He started his career in rocket motor development as part of the Propulsion Research Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville working on several solid,
liquid and bi-propellant rocket motor systems for NASA and other entities. He was also involved in the development of the paraffin hybrid rocket motor system while at the
Space Propulsion Group, a company affiliated to Stanford University. While there he was also involved with Paraffin-N2O Peregrine rocket motor program at NASA Ames.
He was also a Senior Aerospace Engineer involved in the development of the HTPB-Nitrous Oxide hybrid rocket motor for SNC/NASA DreamChaser vehicle and Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship
2 vehicle systems, while employed at Sierra Nevada Corporation. He was also involved in the Paraffin-N2O4 hybrid motor system that was short-listed as the motor system
studied for the NASA JPL Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) program slated for launch in 2026. Since 2019 to 2021 he was leading the motor development team and advising
a German company affiliated to DLR on a hybrid rocket motor based launch system. Dr. Bala is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA and a member of the Hybrid Rocket and
the High Speed Air-Breathing Propulsion (Hypersonics) Technical Committees. He was motivated into the aerospace field by the eminent Dr. Kalam, who had advised him to
pursue the science during a brief interaction, when he was an undergraduate student in India. He is also an active Rotarian and a member of the Silicon Valley Passport Club.
He will be the technology lead at Existential Aerospace overseeing all aspects of the system requirements.
Ravi Gollerkeri (BTech) is the Founder Director at Ananya Technologies Pvt Ltd.,
a defense and aerospace/aeronautics industry contractor. He has led multi disciplinary engineering teams to design, develop and certify avionics and
other systems used in the aircraft industry. Ravi has over two decades of experience in deploying various systems for platforms like Jaguar,
ALH, Hawk, Su 30 MKI, HTT 40 & LCA. His leadership experience includes areas of Program Management, Business Development, Technology & Liaison with
Certification & Regulatory bodies.
He is well versed with the business eco system pertaining to the Defense & Space Industry.
Ravi will be responsible for strategy, relationships in the domain, technology deployment, and certification requirements for Existential Aerospace.
Umesh N.V (BCom, FCA) is an experienced Operations and Finance professional bringing to the organization 34 years of accumulated experience with
MNC in-house center’s. He is a specialist in setting up teams from initial stages and adept in handling Finance, Operations and as a site lead for
managing Global GBS functions. He has worked as independent tax advisor and as CFO, MD for companies such as ANZit, EMC and OTIS Elevators.
During his professional tenure, he has handled offshoring of various roles successfully into India and enabled building world-class in-house centers
and driving the global strategy for these companies on offshoring of finance processes.
Umesh will be responsible for managing all aspects of the setup, Finance, Operations, Company and other compliances for Existential Aerospace.
