team

Suman Sharma

Principal, Head of Business

Suman describes Mangrove as her passion: ‘crazy and chaotic’, the unpredictable nature of work here is what gives her absolute joy. While days can be stressful, she says she’s ‘wired all the time’, for her, working with the team huddled together in Mangrove’s beautiful studio workshop erases most signs of tension. These moments, allow her to thrive amongst the multitude of ideas that emerge. “…design should allow people to feel connected and at the same time have a sense of belonging with what they produce” she says.

Suman graduated as a Furniture Designer from the NID, Ahmedabad in 1998… Amongst the core members of the founding team at Mangrove, her current position at Mangrove is informed by her diverse career in which she has worked as an award-winning designer, entrepreneur, curator and academic.

Arun Kullu

Principal, Head of Design Development & Production

Kullu is a man of few words. His colleagues unanimously describe him as someone who speaks only to communicate deep meaning in very few syllables. Its perhaps fitting that he then describes his design philosophy as inseparable from learning. “The best part of my job is the translation of 2D thinking into 3D objects, which requires the challenge of balancing aesthetic aspiration, locally available skills, efficiency and consistency in quality ” he says. To make this happen, Kullu works around what he considers Mangrove’s core pillars: collaboration & teamwork, purity of thought, uncompromising quality, and a high attention to detail – along with the ‘little extra’ that it takes. When Kullu is not perfecting his art of merging industrial processes with tactile finishes, he enjoys going on long runs.

Arun Kullu is the Head of Design Development & Production at Mangrove. Trained as a furniture designer at the NID Ahmedabad, he has been designing furniture and millwork for almost 20 years.

Ambrish Arora

Mentor

Part of the founding team and Chief Mentor at Mangrove, Ambrish finds fulfillment in “bringing out the best in people”. He envisions Mangrove as a collective, a rich tapestry made out of “several slices of genius”. He hopes to see it break boundaries between blue and white collar – the creation of the artisan-designer or the designer-artisan working symbiotically, learning and growing together. “The ethics within the work space need to be impeccable” he says.

Ambrish’s 33-year career has taken him through several professions from being a mechanic, a computer maintenance man, a teacher, a boat designer, a cinematic line producer, an exhibition designer to now an architectural designer. He founded Studio Lotus in 2002 along with his partners Siddhartha Talwar and Ankur Choksi and currently heads the practice. The studio is acknowledged as a thought leader in the country for their work in the domain of Architecture and Spatial Design. It is the recipient of several national and international awards.

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