Executive Committee

Dr. Ganesh Ramamurthi
President (2025 – 2027)
Email: ganesh.ramamurthy@aoac-india.org

Dr. Ganesh Ramamurthi currently serves as Chief Quality Officer at Star Agri warehousing & Collateral Management Ltd., Mumbai, where he leverages his deep expertise in quality management systems, laboratory operations, and agricultural testing services to drive excellence across the organization.

With a career spanning academia, research, and industry leadership, Dr. Ganesh has played a pivotal role in transforming India’s agri-food testing landscape. His academic foundation includes a PhD in Botany from Osmania University, master’s in microbiology from GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology and a B.Sc. from Osmania University.

Dr. Ramamurthi began his professional journey in academia, founding and leading the Department of Microbiology at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Vivekananda College, Osmania University, where he mentored undergraduate and postgraduate students while developing innovative curriculum and research programs.

His transition to industry brought remarkable contributions to India’s agricultural testing infrastructure. During his tenure at National Commodities Management Services Limited (NCML), he established one of the country’s most extensive pan-India Agri-Food Laboratory networks and created one of India’s largest IoT-based Automatic Weather Station networks. As Chief Operating Officer at NCML, he championed the implementation of Quality Management Systems enterprise-wide, ensuring operational integrity across multiple business units while building high-performing teams. His leadership enabled these laboratories to successfully participate in numerous Proficiency Testing programs for chemical and biological contaminant analyses, establishing their technical credibility and ensuring compliance with NABL, FSSAI, EIC and APEDA standards.

In 2024, Dr. Ramamurthi took on the role of Chief Executive Officer at Auriga Research Private Ltd., a multidisciplinary contract research organization and testing laboratory. There, he managed diverse testing verticals spanning pharmaceuticals, food, nutraceuticals, and medical devices, focusing on strategic capacity and compliance.

Sudhakar Yadlapalli
President – Elect (2025 – 2027)
Email: Sudhakar@aoac-india.org

Sudhakar Yadlapalli is the Chief Executive Officer of First Source Laboratory Solutions LLP (FSLS), a premier analytical testing organization in India. As a founding leader, he has been instrumental in developing FSLS into a state-of-the-art, cGMP-compliant facility serving the Food, Agriculture, and Pharmaceutical industries. Under his visionary leadership, the laboratory has achieved NABL (ISO/IEC 17025) accreditation and has successfully undergone inspections by the USFDA and Health Canada, underscoring its commitment to global quality and regulatory standards.

With more than 30 years of experience in analytical laboratory management, technical operations, and business development, Yadlapalli is widely recognized for his expertise in scaling laboratory operations, leading high-performing scientific teams, driving regulatory compliance, and fostering innovation across sectors including Food & Agriculture, Pharmaceuticals, Environmental Sciences, and Bioanalytical Testing.

A long-standing and active member of AOAC International since 2009, he has made significant contributions through collaborative studies, expert review panels, and stakeholder forums. His early work—including a landmark collaborative study on detecting trace agricultural residues in soft drinks—was published in AOAC Official Methods (2007–2008). He is also serving as a Member, Official Methods Board, AOAC International.

His excellence has been recognized with several prestigious honors:

• AOAC Fellow Award (2021).

• AOAC Technical and Scientific Excellence Awards (2016, 2020).

• Expert Review Panel of the Year Awards (2018, 2019, 2021, 2025).

• Technical Excellence Award, Vimta Labs, India (2004).

• Customer Delight Award, Vimta Labs, India (2007).

Beyond his industry leadership roles, Yadlapalli has contributed to more than 15 international publications and continues to be an influential voice in global regulatory and scientific forums, including FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) and APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority).

Mr. Prashant Bagade
Secretary (2025- 2027)
Email: prashant.bagade@aoac-india.org

Mr. Prashant Bagade has about three decades of experience, in India and abroad, working with ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited Food, Pharma and Environmental testing laboratories, R&D institutions, and Universities holding various positions in the areas of technical, quality control, and project management. Areas of expertise include managing laboratories including designing to set-up to accreditation; Agri-business Incubation; Systems development and implementation for efficient functioning; Implementing and monitoring Quality Management Systems; Writing research proposals for seeking grants and executing research projects; Conducting international and national capacity building programs.

He is currently working as a freelancer in food safety and quality and is actively involved in delivering lectures as part of various capacity building programs apart from working with academia as a member of Board of Studies at Vignan University, Guntur, AP. Previously he worked as Head – R&D, National Collateral Management Services Limited (NCML) where he has established a DSIR recognized research facility and also served as Laboratory head being responsible for all laboratory operations in South zone. Prior to NCML, he has worked as Laboratory Director at Neogen Food and Animal Security (India) Pvt Ltd., International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and in USA holding various positions in analytical laboratories.

Mr. Bagade has obtained MS from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia, USA in Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences subsequent to his graduation and post-graduation from GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology in the field of agriculture.

Ashutosh Kumar Mittal, Ph.D.
Treasurer (2025 – 2027)
Email: ashutoshmi@aoac-india.org

Ashutosh Kumar Mittal, Ph.D., is a seasoned quality leader with more than twenty-five years of experience in Quality Control and Quality Assurance across food, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical industries. Currently Ashutosh serving as Director – Quality Control for Herbalife India, where he oversees the operations of Analytical laboratory at Center of Excellence in Bangalore.

Prior to Herbalife, Ashutosh held senior leadership positions at Syngene International, where he managed QA/QC functions for Abbott Nutrition R&D.During his tenure at Syngene International under Quality Function, he drove operational excellence projects like Lean Lab practices, digital transformation by leading implementation of LIMS, QMS and DMS digital tools in GMP quality assurance function of Syngene.

His earlier career includes impactful roles at

• SGS India, Life Sciences facility, where he was involved in setting of pharmaceutical testing lab as per cGMP and management of Extractable and Leachable projects for pharmaceutical packaging.
• Vimta Labs, he was responsible for operation of Trace and Ultra Trace analytical labs,  taking care of scientific project management for analytical development, Validations and Extractables and Leachable Projects, impurity profiling, genotoxic impurity testing, residue analysis for pesticides, antibiotics, toxins, volatile and non-volatile impurities etc.
• Jubilant Clinsys which was under startup stage, when he joined the group, he was involved in the setting up procedures and work flow for Bioanalytical laboratory per GLP following the USFDA GLP guidelines. He managed the development and validation for drug molecules for a number bioequivalence/ bioavailability studies involving healthy human volunteers using mass specs and HPLCs.

As an active member of AOAC International since 2020 and India section of AOAC since 2015, he has participated in MLT studies for AOAC 2011.10, AOAC 2015.06, AOAC 2017.03, AOAC 2011.19, AOAC 2015.09,  AOAC 2015.14 methods and also provided technical supports for single laboratory validation executed under AOAC India Section involving Envirocare lab for Votamin B12 (AOAC 2011.10) and Forst Source Laboratory Solution for Multi mineral testing (2015.06) in Adult nutritional products registered in India under FSSAI. Besides this, he is also a member of the Bureau of Indian Standards – Committee on Test methods for food products [FAD-28]; NABL ISO 17025 Technical and Lead Assessor empaneled by NABL and worked as UNIDO faculty trainer for capacity-building programs run by UNIDO.