Corporate Trainer in Chennai
If you are looking for a corporate trainer in Chennai who can hold a room of senior bank executives, engineering managers or MSME founders for a full day — and send them back to work with something they actually use on Monday — you are in the right place.
I'm Dr. Sundararaman Chintamani. I have been a regular corporate trainer since 2019, empanelled with the Madras Management Association (MMA) and a regular faculty member at Indian Bank's IMAGE academy. I run workshops on leadership, communication, business storytelling, design thinking and Industry 4.0 — at client sites across Chennai, and across India.
Forty years in industry came first: petroleum refining, IT consulting, and process automation. The training came after. That order matters, and your participants will notice it within the first ten minutes.
A Workshop Is Not a Long Speech
A keynote is designed to move a room. Training is designed to change what people do. The two need entirely different craft, and treating a training day as an extended talk is the most common reason corporate programmes fail to stick.
My workshops are built around practice, not presentation. Participants work on their own material — their actual project pitch, their real customer conversation, the review meeting they dread. They present, get feedback, and try again in the same room.
That is also why I keep group sizes sensible. Twenty-five engaged participants who each get to practise will out-perform a hall of two hundred watching slides, every time.
Empanelments & Standing Faculty Roles
Madras Management Association (MMA) — empanelled as an official trainer, delivering day-long workshops either at MMA premises in Chennai or at client locations on MMA's behalf.
Indian Bank Management Academy for Growth & Excellence (IMAGE) — regular faculty, training senior bank executives on Agile Leadership, Personal Branding, Communication Skills and Business Storytelling.
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) — Poornatha — training founders and entrepreneurs across the MSME sector.
Certified Industry 4.0 Assessor — certified by TUV SUD and CII, which underpins the digital transformation and Industry 4.0 programmes below.
These are not one-off bookings. They are standing relationships with institutions that re-invite trainers only when the feedback justifies it — which is the most honest quality signal a corporate L&D team can look for.
Training Programmes
Every programme below has been delivered to real corporate audiences. Each can be run as a half-day, full-day or multi-day workshop, and each is rebuilt around your sector, your vocabulary and your people before delivery.
Business Storytelling for Leaders
My signature programme, and the subject of my book. Leaders learn to turn data, strategy and change announcements into narratives people remember and act on. Participants build and deliver a story from their own current work, and rework it live on feedback. Popular with banking, IT and manufacturing leadership teams.
Communication Skills for Professionals
Practical communication for people who must be understood under pressure: structuring a message, handling questions, running a meeting that ends in a decision, and speaking clearly to seniors. Delivered repeatedly to senior bank executives through Indian Bank's IMAGE academy.
Impromptu Speaking & Executive Presence
Thinking and speaking on your feet — the skill most managers need weekly and are never taught. Frameworks for structuring an answer in seconds, plus intensive practice. Drawn from my book on the subject and eighteen years in Toastmasters.
Design Thinking
Human-centred problem solving, run as a working workshop rather than a theory session. Teams take a live business problem through empathy, definition, ideation and prototyping. Delivered across roughly ten internal batches at Tech Mahindra, and at MMA, TVS Electronics, Agility Logistics, SSN College of Engineering and VIT.
Agile Leadership
Leading teams when the plan keeps changing: decision-making under uncertainty, delegation, feedback, and holding direction without rigidity. Delivered to senior banking leadership through IMAGE.
Personal Branding
How senior professionals build a credible, visible professional identity — internally and externally — without self-promotion that makes them cringe. Includes practical work on LinkedIn presence and speaking opportunities.
Reinvention in the AI Era
What AI actually changes for your function, and how teams stay relevant through it. Built on my own eight career reinventions across four decades, and on AI applications I have designed and built myself — not a survey of headlines.
Industry 4.0 & Digital Transformation
For manufacturing, process and engineering organisations. Delivered as a Certified Industry 4.0 Assessor (TUV SUD and CII). Covers the maturity model, where the real value sits, and how to sequence adoption without stalling operations.
Process Safety & Automation
Technical training grounded in fifteen years in petroleum refining: process control automation, process safety management, and OSHA's fourteen elements. Delivered at A.C. College of Technology, Anna University and to industry groups including CIA Chennai and Cuddalore SIPCOT.
Team Building & Game-Based Sessions
Experiential sessions for offsites and outbound programmes — communication, collaboration and leadership thinking through structured games and debriefs, rather than trust falls. Suitable for mixed-seniority groups.
Who I Train
Organisations I Have Trained
A selection of corporate and institutional clients across Chennai and India:
On the academic side: Anna University, VIT, SRM, SSN College of Engineering, KCG College of Technology, AMET University, BITS Pilani and PDPU Gandhinagar. My ProSimLab (PS-1000) simulation suite is deployed in 100+ institutions across India.
How an Engagement Works
Scoping conversation
A call to understand who is in the room, what has already been tried, and what "success" looks like to the sponsor. Usually 30 minutes.
Customisation
The programme is rebuilt around your sector and vocabulary. Examples, cases and exercises come from your world, not a generic deck.
Delivery
At your premises, at MMA, or online. Practice-heavy, with every participant presenting and receiving feedback.
Follow-through
Takeaway material, and where the engagement warrants it, a follow-up session to review what participants actually applied.
Corporate Training in Chennai — and Beyond
I am based in Chennai, which means no travel cost, no scheduling friction, and the ability to run a session at short notice anywhere in the city — Guindy, Sholinganallur, OMR, Ambattur, Alwarpet, the IT corridor, or your own campus. For Chennai clients I am also happy to do the scoping conversation in person.
Beyond Chennai, I deliver across Tamil Nadu and India — sessions have taken me to New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Dehradun, Gandhinagar, Karaikudi and Tiruvallur, among others. Online and hybrid delivery is available where a distributed team makes that more practical.
What People Say
Participants and L&D teams who have run these programmes have written about how they landed.
Read the testimonials →Frequently Asked Questions
What does a corporate trainer in Chennai typically charge?
Fees depend on programme length, group size, and how much customisation and follow-through the engagement needs. A half-day session and a three-day Industry 4.0 programme are not comparable. Tell me what you have in mind and you will get a clear number, not a range that moves later.
How large a group can you train?
For practice-based programmes such as business storytelling or communication skills, 20 to 30 participants is the sweet spot — everyone gets to present and receive feedback. Larger cohorts are workable when split into batches, which many clients prefer for exactly this reason. Awareness sessions can run considerably larger.
Do you deliver at our office or at a training venue?
Either. Most Chennai clients prefer their own premises. I also deliver at MMA as an empanelled trainer, and at client sites on MMA's behalf. Residential offsites and resort venues are equally fine.
Can the programme be customised to our industry?
Yes, and it always is. Forty years across petroleum refining, IT consulting and process automation means I can build cases from your world rather than borrowing generic ones. Banking, manufacturing, IT services and MSME contexts are all familiar ground.
Do you offer training in Tamil?
Yes. I work in English and Tamil, which matters for shop-floor, MSME and field-force audiences where English-only delivery quietly loses half the room.
How far in advance should we book?
Three to four weeks is comfortable and allows proper customisation. Shorter notice is often possible for Chennai engagements — being local helps. Ask, and I will tell you honestly whether the date works.
Do you run online or hybrid sessions?
Yes. Online works well for communication, storytelling and awareness programmes. For heavily experiential formats such as design thinking sprints, in-person delivers materially better outcomes and I will say so rather than take the booking.
What makes you different from a full-time trainer?
I spent four decades doing the work before I began teaching it — fifteen years in a petroleum refinery, then IT consulting and process automation, alongside a PhD and Industry 4.0 assessor certification. Participants can tell the difference between someone who has run a plant and someone who has only read about one.
Planning a Training Programme?
Tell me who is in the room and what needs to change. I will tell you honestly whether I am the right trainer for it.
Discuss your training needOr call +91 98409 23764 · sundar@sundarspeaks.com