Ashish K. Khandpur

Dr. Ashish K. Khandpur is 3M’s chief technology officer and senior vice president of Research and Development. With the company for more than 20 years, he leads about 8,300 researchers around the world.

Ashish began his 3M career as a senior research engineer in 1995. Over the years, he held various US and international based technical and leadership roles in corporate research labs, division and subsidiary labs, and the company’s Asia Pacific region, as well as global R&D head of 3M’s Industrial Business Group.

While on an assignment to his native, India, Ashish was responsible for establishing the country’s first product development lab for 3M.  In January 2014, he began leading one of 3M’s biggest businesses, the Personal Safety Division. Later that same year, he was appointed 3M’s head of R&D and chief technology officer, reporting to CEO Inge Thulin.

“The culture in R&D in 3M is one of collaboration and sharing among our global technical community,” Ashish says. “We routinely build on each other’s ideas in a boundary-less way to solve the problems of customers and to bring relevance and breakthrough innovation to our global markets.”

Ashish holds a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He sits on the latter’s advisory board for the College of Science and Engineering, works with the 3M Women’s Leadership Forum and is a board member of the 3M Foundation, with a particular focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. He and his wife have two daughters.