What pushed CXOs to the edge in Covid world; Over 100 senior execs quit since April 2020, Auto News, ET Auto

New Delhi: Fiscal year 2020-21 began with a historic month of zero vehicle sales and progressed with many challenges on its way. Similarly, FY22 also started with the second COVID wave, followed by the tough times for the automobile industry. Amid all the ups and downs, the auto companies made a large number of changes in their senior leadership positions.

According to Pankaj Dutt, Regional Leader – South East Asia, Alexander Hughes, performance issues were completely exposed for the companies between the first and the second lockdown because until then they have been citing COVID-related disruptions as the only reason for lack of demand. Competitive edge was missing for demand creation as they had not seen such a pressure on demand for the past 10-15 years. So, OEMs opted for rejigs before the situation got worse.

The second reason could be that owing to COVID and related lockdowns, OEMs refrained from going ahead with fresh investments and expansion plans.

Even globally, companies made realignments and roles changed for certain leaders in the organisation. Another reason could be that the global leadership did not have confidence in the regional head’s strategy which might have caused certain attritions.

Most of these exits were due to the company pressure, and only a few of them were voluntary, Dutt said.

“Auto industry is a very closed ecosystem in terms of talent,” he remarked.

Amol Gangaramany, Director, ABC Consultants, said, The auto industry had been observing subdued demand for the past two years due to external factors like demonetisation, BS-VI norms etc. COVID has added to the already uncertain industry. OEMs are forced to relook at their strategies and finance functions due to which they are also looking for professional managers across different roles, who can handle these situations and have a techno-commercial mindset.

As for CEO, CXO, CMO level appointments, the tenure has come down to 4 to 5 years, from around 10-15 years earlier. They are experiencing performance pressure from shareholders also, he said.

As per experts, exits and appointments at senior management roles are expected to continue for the next year as well.

Passenger vehicle

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) saw the majority of rejigs in the PV domain. Its chief of design for the automotive sector Ramkripa Ananthan ended her over two-decade stint with the company. The resignation came soon after automobile designer Pratap Bose joined the Mahindra Group.

The automaker’s Head of Marketing Vivek Nayar also resigned from his position, ending a 14-year long association with M&M. VS Parthasarathy, who joined the Mahindra group in 2000 and was the president of its Mobility Services Sector and Member of the Group Executive Board also resigned.

M&M appointed Asha Kharga as the Chief Customer & Brand Officer and Neha Anand as Head of digital marketing and communication. It also appointed Amit Sinha as President- Group Strategy, Mahindra Group. Prior to joining Mahindra, Sinha was a senior partner and director with Bain & Company.

The auto major elevated Anish Shah as the MD & CEO of the company. He was earlier holding the charge of Deputy Managing Director and Group Chief Financial Officer.

Tata Motors announced after much speculation that CEO Guenter Butschek has stepped down from his role after a tenure of five years.

The company’s Mayank Pareek resigned as the President of PVBU, Sujan Roy as Head- International Business, RT Wasan as VP- Sales & Marketing of CV division and Rajesh Nair as HR for commercial vehicles, sales and marketing, customer care and spare parts verticals.

In a recent announcement, Hyundai Motor India appointed Unsoo Kim as the new MD for the company, thereby replacing SS Kim who will lead a global role at Hyundai Motor Company headquarters in Seoul.

In September this year, Kia India elevated Tae-Jin Park as the MD & CEO of the company. Prior to his association with Kia India in January 2020, he served at the headquarters of Kia Corporation in Seoul.

In November last year, the founding marketing and sales head of Kia Motor India, Manohar Bhat, resigned from the company. He drove Kia’s new brands, Seltos and Sonet SUVs in the market.

Honda Cars India sales & marketing head Rajesh Goel called it quits, just a year after the shutting down of the company’s Greater Noida plant. Earlier, Rajiv Gupta, Vice President (sales and marketing) and Navid Talib, Head of Operations- Manufacturing & planning Strategy also resigned from their positions. Talib had been associated with Honda for over two decades.

In a sudden move, Skoda Auto Volkswagen’s MD Gurpratap Boparai recently resigned from his position. Boparai who was appointed as the MD of Skoda Auto India Private Limited first in 2018 led the restructuring of all the group brands under a new entity – Skoda Auto Volkswagen India

The Indian subsidiary appointed Berndt A Buchmann as the Group Director- Aftersales & Logistics. Prior to his appointment to the current position, Buchmann held a position in Volkswagen Group Japan as Director Group After-sales and Head of Volkswagen After-sales.

Volvo Cars promoted Jyoti Malhotra as managing director of its Indian operations from his earlier role as director, sales, marketing and PR.

The Indian wing of the Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo Car India also appointed Jonas Olsson as the Head of Digital Technology Hub. He came from Volvo Group India, where he was HR Director Region APAC and was part of the Group IT Leadership Team.

The company’s marketing and PR director, Sudeep Narayan resigned from the luxury automaker after a 12 year stint.

The newly-formed Stellantis India restructured its brands’ leadership in India, with Nipun J Mahajan taking over as Jeep’s brand head and Saurav Vatsa as head of Citroen. Mahajan has been serving as the Vice President of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles since September 2016 and Vatsa has been associated with Citroen since 2018. Following this, the company also made additional changes in its leadership for 10 positions who will report to Roland Bouchara, the CEO and MD for Stellantis in India.

BMW Group India appointed Vikram Pawah as the President, effective from August 1, 2020. He took the place of Rudratej Singh, who suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away in April last year.

In May this year, Mercedes Benz India rejigged its sales and marketing unit and brought in Pradeep Srinivas as head of the marketing and customer services, replacing the incumbent Amit Thete.

Premium luxury carmaker Porsche India head Pavan Shetty also hung up his boots after a four-year innings.

Two-wheelers

The top deck of the country’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp saw at least three top-level executives parting ways with the company within a span of a year. Gurinder Sandhu, who joined the company in November 2016 tendered his resignation as chief marketing officer (CMO) in June 2021. He followed the Hero MotoCorp veteran Vijay Sethi who quit the company as chief information officer (CIO), head of human resources and head of Corporate Social Responsibility in January this year after being with it for about 14 years.

In October 2020, just a few months before Sethi’s resignation, Hero’s top strategist Rajat Bhargava quit the company. He had been driving Hero’s new business initiatives.

In November 2019, Sanjay Bhan, Head – Sales, Aftersales and Parts, Hero MotoCorp ended his 30 year-long stint with the company. However, he returned to the company after a brief innings in Ola Electric.

In May 2020, HMSI announced a host of changes in its executive team and appointed Atsushi Ogata as new President, CEO and Managing Director of the company after Minoru Kato. It also appointed certain Directors to its board.

In August 2021, Vinod K Dasari stepped down as chief executive officer of Royal Enfield and B Govindarajan took on the responsibility of leading the premium bike maker. Prior to joining Royal Enfield, Dasari was the CEO & MD of Ashok Leyland, a position he held since 2011.

In November, Royal Enfield appointed Mohit Dhar Jayal as its Chief Brand Officer (CBO).

As part of a global revamp by parent Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC), Suzuki Motorcycle India (SMIPL) appointed Satoshi Uchida as its new Company Head in May this year.

Commercial vehicles

Vipin Sondhi, managing director and chief executive of Ashok Leyland, will step down from his position on December 31, within two years of appointment. Its COO Nitin Seth, who has spent over a decade with the company, also resigned in September 2021.

In June 2021, the company appointed N V Balachander to head a new division of Sustainability as president of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives, and Amanpreet Singh as president and head of HR. Singh had been with the Hinduja Group in Mumbai since December 2019 working closely with the Group HR Head on the strategic aspects of Group HR.

The company also announced Shom Ashok Hinduja as the Additional Director on its board.

In July, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) announced the creation of a Transformation Management Office (TMO) and the new position of a Chief Transformation Officer. It said that Chulanga Perera, Chief Information Officer, DICV, will lead the TMO as “Chief Transformation Officer and Head of Strategy” in a dual role until a new CIO is announced.

In September, the company appointed Manish Thakore as the CFO of the company. He was earlier serving as the Managing Director of Daimler Financial Services India.

Electric vehicles

EVs are the talk of the town and major OEMs have announced their EV plans and strategies. Alongside, a number of startups have been making noise, specifically in the two-wheeler segment. Major rejigs in this segment took place at the Tier-I management level where the companies hired new CEO, CXO, MD and so on.

Pankaj Dutt noted that while some of the traditional players shifted their trusted executives to head the EV subsidiaries, others observed a few confidential exits as certain executives had been leading the OEM’s EV strategies for long but still failed to bring out the plan in time.

Gangaramany said that in the last two years, transformation in digital technology was driving the demand for talent. Now, auto firms are investing in new technologies like EVs and alternative fuels, with an increase in the number of hirings in this segment.

In March 2021, M&M consolidated Mahindra Electric Mobility Limited (MEML), a step-down subsidiary, into the company. In a surprise move, Mahesh Babu resigned in July as CEO and MD of the company and Suman Mishra took over as its Chief Executive. Prior to this, she was the Head – Business Transformation, Customer Insights and Analytics (Auto Division) at Mahindra Group. Following this, Martin Murray ended his stint as CTO of the company.

As Tesla firmed up its plans to roll out its first all-electric car in India, the Elon Musk-run company hired top executives in April this year. It onboarded IIM Bangalore alumnus Manuj Khurana as Policy and Business Development head for India operations. It also appointed Country HR Leader Chithra Thomas who earlier worked at Walmart and Reliance Retail.

“As for EV Startups, with limited funds and mostly single products, which too are just assembled, they haven’t shown the need or appetite for senior executives. Most of such startups also are not taking the initiative to expand demand so they are not keen on hiring very seasoned executives,” Dutt said.

In August 2020, Ankit Jain, co-founder of Ola Electric and one of the closest confidants of Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, stepped away from his role in the company.

Ahead of Ola’s plans to go for an initial public offering (IPO), the company restructured its organisation. It appointed PV Harinarayan as vice president of lending at Ola Financial Services. The senior hirings included V Ramesh who joined the company’s EV venture as vice president and head of operations at the Ola Electric’s manufacturing hub, Ola Futurefactory. It also roped in Priteesh Mahajan as head of Ola Electric’s two-wheeler product planning and program management.

Ola Electric’s Head of Vehicle Design Burgess is also a Jaguar veteran having joined JLR in 2001, and then went on to become the Design Director of Jaguar Production and SVO Vehicles. The company appointed N Balachandar as Chief Human Resources Officer, a 33-year industry HR veteran.

Consumer brand Detel appointed Ravneet Singh as General Manager of EV Manufacturing. With over 30 years of experience in manufacturing internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric bikes, Singh has been associated with Yamaha Motor India, Subros, Sandhar Technologies, and Okinawa Autotech.

Auto components

According to Gangaramany, auto component makers are at a cusp where they want to move forward aggressively by focusing on creating or being part of the EV Ecosystem and also pursuing export opportunities.

Spark Minda, which has a major presence in the Global Automotive Industry and caters to passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, motorcycles, scooters and off-road vehicle manufacturing and Tier 1 Manufacturers in India appointed Kapil Madaan as Chief Information Security Officer in December 2020.

Technology company Continental announced changes in the engineering leadership of its ADAS and VED business units (BU) in the in-house R&D facility Technical Center India (TCI). Interchanging their respective roles, Praveen Kumar took over as the Head of Engineering, VED BU and Jaidev Venkataraman took over as the Head of Engineering – Sensorics, ADAS BU.

In May last year, after more than a decade-long stint, Sandhar Technologies’ Arvind Joshi resigned from the post of Chief Financial Officer due to personal reasons. Joshi had been with Sandhar Technologies for more than 15 years.

Motherson Sumi promoted Mohit Gupta as its Group Chief Information Security Officer. Prior to this new role, Gupta was CISO of MothersonSumi INfotech and Designs Limited, an IT division of Motherson Group.

In May this year, the Board of Directors of Subros appointed Shraddha Suri as Chairperson and Managing Director of Subros Limited. She has over 21 years of experience in the automotive sector. Currently, she is on the ACMA executive committee as the chairperson of the ACMA Northern Region.

Greaves Cotton appointed Dalpat Jain, a Chartered Accountant with post-qualification experience of over 16 years, as CFO of the company. However, its CTO Ravi Damodaran resigned from the company after a four-year stint.

Automotive solution maker Harman, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd, elevated Prathab Deivanayagham as country manager for its India operations. He has been with the company for over eight years.

Mobis India, automotive parts, accessories and mobility solutions manufacturer for Hyundai and Kia in India and worldwide, appointed Yong Goon Park as Managing Director, Aftersales Parts Division.

Anand Group, with a number of JVs also announced the internal restructuring of its leadership roles of the Chairman, CTO, COO etc.

Pricol’s V Balaji Chinnappan stepped down as the company’s chief operating officer (COO).

Miscellaneous

In May last year, Goodyear India reshuffled its top management. Rajeev Anand, who was earlier appointed as Managing Director of the company, assumed the role of Executive Chairman. Anand will be succeeded by Sandeep Mahajan and will assume the role and responsibility of Managing Director of the Company.

JCB Group appointed Deepak Shetty as Deputy CEO and Managing Director of JCB India Limited. Shetty will take over as MD and CEO from Subir Kumar Chowdhury who has announced his retirement after a 15-year stint with the company.

Tyre manufacturer TVS Srichakra Limited announced the reappointment of R Naresh as the Managing Director (Designated as Executive Vice Chairman) of the company for another 3 years. The company has reappointed Shobhana Ramachandhran as Managing Director of the company for 5 years

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