From the gear shop to the chief executive's chair, in six appointments

Mandate

As the first chief executive from outside the founding family, prepare the company for electric vehicles without starving the business that funds the change, reduce dependence on the largest customers, and build a management team that works with the promoter family rather than around it.

Outcomes

• Grew electric-vehicle revenue from ₹38 Cr in FY2021-22 to ₹560 Cr in FY2025-26 through a staged ₹620 Cr programme, of which ₹540 Cr was spent by March 2026.
• Reduced the largest customer's share of revenue from 38 to 31 per cent, and the top two customers' share from 58 to 47 per cent.
• Raised EBITDA margin from 11.2 per cent in FY2020-21 to 13.3 per cent in FY2025-26.
• Signed a four-year settlement at Chakan I in March 2024 and made 386 core production roles permanent.
• Grew exports from ₹610 Cr to ₹1,370 Cr and established Kavirath Europe B.V.

Decisions in context

The board appointed me managing director and chief executive in April 2021, when Nikhil Ghaisas became executive chairman after eleven years running the company. Revenue was ₹3,980 crore, the largest customer would take 38 per cent of it the following year, and less than one per cent came from electric vehicles. My mandate was to change all three without breaking the relationships that had built the company. The first two years were dominated by the electric-vehicle decision and the below-cost award we declined, and the third by the dispute at Chakan I. I sit on the board as an executive director and on its Risk Management and Corporate Social Responsibility Committees, and I attend the Audit Committee as an invitee. By March 2026 revenue had reached ₹6,240 crore and EBITDA ₹830 crore, and net debt stood at 0.8 times EBITDA after five years of heavy capital spending.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one independent directorship with the Kavirath board's approval.

Mandate

Bring four plants built over four decades onto one operating system, and commission a two-wheeler gear plant at Hosur.

Outcomes

• Cut customer-reported defects from 410 to 95 parts per million between FY2017-18 and FY2020-21.
• Raised average overall equipment effectiveness on gear lines from 61 to 72 per cent.
• Commissioned the ₹380 Cr Hosur plant in 2019, two months late and within budget.
• Restarted all five plants within six weeks of the 2020 lockdown being lifted.

Decisions in context

I joined Kavirath in June 2017 as its first chief operating officer. The company had grown by adding plants, and each reflected the decade and the plant head that built it: different measures, different maintenance habits and different ideas of what counted as a defect. I spent the first year establishing common measures and a single monthly review, then moved the best practice of each plant into the others. Customer-reported defects fell from 410 to 95 parts per million in three years. I commissioned our Hosur plant in 2019 for two-wheeler gears, two months late because grinding machines arrived late, and within its ₹380 crore budget. In 2020 I managed the shutdown and restart of all five plants. Working for Nikhil Ghaisas for four years also taught me how the family thought about the company, which made the step to chief executive less abrupt than it might have been.

Reason for the move

Appointed managing director and chief executive when the managing director became executive chairman.

Mandate

Grow exports and reduce the business's dependence on a single North American customer.

Outcomes

• Grew export revenue from ₹520 Cr in FY2011-12 to ₹880 Cr in FY2016-17.
• Qualified seven new customers in Europe and North America.
• Cut the largest customer's share of exports from 52 to 33 per cent.
• Commissioned a ₹110 Cr crankshaft machining line so that parts left the plant ready to fit.

Decisions in context

Kesmore Forgings gave me my first profit-and-loss responsibility, for a business selling crankshafts, axle beams and steering knuckles to customers abroad and to tractor and off-highway makers in India. When I arrived, export revenue was ₹520 crore and more than half came from one North American engine maker. I spent much of my first two years on aircraft and in customers' incoming-inspection rooms, qualifying new buyers in Europe and North America; it took about twenty months on average from first sample to series orders. We invested ₹110 crore in a machining line so that crankshafts left Pune ready to fit, which raised the value of each part and made us harder to replace. By 2016–17 exports were ₹880 crore and the largest customer's share had fallen to a third. Presenting our export strategy to Kesmore's board twice a year gave me my first regular experience of a boardroom.

Reason for the move

Offered the chief operating officer's role at Kavirath, with responsibility for every plant and a stated prospect of the chief executive's role.

Mandate

Build and run the subsidiary's second Indian plant and localise products then imported from Germany.

Outcomes

• Commissioned the greenfield plant in fourteen months against a sixteen-month plan.
• Launched eleven customer programmes between 2006 and 2011.
• Raised local content from 35 to 78 per cent of material cost.
• Reduced the lost-time injury frequency rate to 0.4 per million hours worked.

Decisions in context

In April 2005 Haldenmark asked me to build its second Indian plant on a greenfield site at Oragadam, where several vehicle makers had set up assembly plants. I hired the first forty people myself, most of them diploma engineers and operators trained at local industrial training institutes, and we commissioned the plant in fourteen months. Over six years we launched eleven programmes and localised the steel, forgings and heat treatment that had first been imported, lifting local content from 35 to 78 per cent of material cost. The plant grew to 820 people and ₹590 crore of revenue. Reporting to an Indian managing director with a functional line to Germany taught me patience and precision in equal measure. By 2011 I wanted to run a business whose decisions were made in India, by people accountable for all of it.

Reason for the move

Wanted profit-and-loss responsibility for a whole business in an Indian-owned company, where decisions are taken in India.

Mandate

Introduce hard finishing of gears after heat treatment and transfer products from the German parent to Pune.

Outcomes

• Introduced gear grinding after heat treatment at Pune, the subsidiary's first such line.
• Transferred six products from Germany to Pune between 2002 and 2005.
• Reduced gear scrap from 3.8 to 1.2 per cent.
• Completed a part-time postgraduate diploma in management in 2004.

Decisions in context

I joined Haldenmark's Pune plant in February 1999 as a manufacturing engineer. The company ground its gears after heat treatment, correcting the distortion I had fought at Varunagiri rather than living with it, and in September 2000 it sent me to its main gear plant in Germany for eighteen months. There I learnt grinding, noise testing at the end of the line and a discipline of proving a process before trusting it that I still use. Back in Pune I led the transfer of six products from Germany, which meant persuading two sets of engineers to trust each other's measurements. Gear scrap fell from 3.8 to 1.2 per cent. Between 2002 and 2004 I studied in the evenings for a postgraduate diploma in management, because I was beginning to want decisions that went beyond the process sheet.

Reason for the move

Asked to build and lead the subsidiary's greenfield plant near Chennai.

Mandate

Learn gear manufacturing and improve heat-treatment and hobbing quality in the tractor gear shop.

Outcomes

• Reduced crown-wheel rejection after carburising from 7 to 2.5 per cent.
• Introduced statistical process control on hobbing machines.
• Wrote the gear shop's first standard operating instructions, in Marathi and English.

Decisions in context

I joined Varunagiri Tractors as a graduate engineer trainee in July 1994, a month after finishing my degree. The company was family-owned, made about 20,000 tractors a year and cut its own transmission gears in a shop that had changed little since the 1970s. I worked rotating shifts for my first two years, learning hobbing, shaving and carburising from operators who had done the work for decades. My main project was crown-wheel distortion in heat treatment: rejection after carburising had settled at 7 per cent, and everyone had accepted it. After eighteen months of trials with fixtures and quench settings it was 2.5 per cent. I left in early 1999 because I wanted to learn how gears could be finished to the precision that passenger vehicles needed, which Varunagiri did not yet attempt.

Reason for the move

Wanted to learn precision gear finishing for passenger vehicles at an international supplier.