G.A. Menon, chairman of Toonz Animation India (Technopark, Trivandrum, India), died on Dec. 2, 2003 at the age of 72 of a heart attack he suffered on a Los Angelesbound flight from Singapore.
A native of Kerala, Menons career spanned more than 40 years in the global electronics business. He began his career at a statistician in the Thackersey Mooljee Group of textile mills in Bombay. Upon receiving his M.B.A. from Harvard, he held various managerial positions at IBM for 15 years.
He became chairman of many companies in the Chandaria Group in the 1960s, most recently chair of Venture Corp. Ltd., one for the 15 largest electronics manufacturing companies in the world. He also was founder/director of Managecomp Intl Ltd. (Singapore) while serving as chairman of Senior Systems Technology Inc. (U.S.). He also chaired U.S. Software Resources Pvt. Ltd., I.E.S. Geospatial Systems India Pvt. Ltd. and Transversal E Networks in Technopark Park, where he was concentrating on creating a group of technology companies based in India. Toonz Animation India, one of the leading animation production studios and training institutes in India, was co-founded by Menon with Bill Dennis in 1999. Toonz hosts the Week With The Masters' Animation Celebration's Film Competition.
He was a visionary, entrepreneur and one of the finest persons I've ever known. We're all going to miss him terribly, said Dennis, president of Toonz (www.toonzanimationindia.com).
Menon, who had been living in Beverly Hills since 1988, is survived by his wife, Yamuna, and son Raju, a chip designer in Silicon Valley.
