Company: Confidential large listed tyre and mobility-materials company
Board base: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Sector: Automotive tyres, off-highway tyres and engineered rubber products
Appointment: Independent Director, Non-Executive
Intended committees: Risk Management Committee Chair; member, Audit and CSR/Sustainability Committees
Time commitment: 28–34 days annually, including plant, proving-ground and dealer visits
Application deadline: 25 September 2026
Expected appointment: November 2026
Company context
The company manufactures tyres for passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, two-wheelers and selected off-highway applications through multiple Indian plants and export channels. Its economics are shaped by natural rubber, synthetic rubber, carbon black, energy, freight, original-equipment programmes, replacement distribution and product warranties. Electrification is changing load, torque, noise, wear and material requirements.
Market hint: A southern manufacturing heritage, large replacement network, OEM relationships and export ambitions could describe several leading tyre companies. Brand, market rank, promoter and plant towns are withheld.
Board mandate
The director will ensure that safety, technology transition and commodity discipline are governed as one enterprise system. Volume, utilisation and market share cannot override field performance, supplier quality or capital return.
Strategic priorities
- Define product-safety governance from compound design and component preparation through curing, uniformity, inspection, release, field monitoring and recall.
- Track warranty and field data by plant, mould, specification, vehicle, duty cycle, geography and age to detect low-frequency, high-severity patterns early.
- Require Board thresholds for service campaign, customer notification, production hold and recall; commercial impact must not control safety classification.
- Govern natural-rubber sourcing through traceability, farmer economics, weather, land-use, quality, inventory ageing and geographic concentration.
- Integrate synthetic rubber, carbon black, oil, currency, energy and freight exposures with pricing clauses, hedging and working-capital decisions.
- Re-underwrite OEM programmes for tooling, development cost, committed price-down, warranty, capacity reservation and platform life.
- Test EV and connected-tyre investments against validated performance, customer qualification, premium durability and payback rather than trend language.
- Stage-gate new capacity and debottlenecking through demand by segment, product mix, yield, plant constraints, dealer inventory and downside utilisation.
- Govern emissions, tyre wear, rolling resistance, recycled content and sustainable-material claims with measurable product and life-cycle evidence.
- Review dealer credit, channel inventory, secondary sales, incentive accruals, counterfeit products and service quality as one market-control system.
Decisions expected at Board level
- Whether field failures justify a recall before an engineering cause is conclusively isolated.
- Whether an OEM contract creates strategic access or locks the company into inadequate lifecycle returns.
- Whether EV-specific capacity should proceed ahead of durable replacement demand.
- Whether commodity hedges protect physical margins or create unauthorised trading exposure.
- Whether a recycled or bio-based material claim is supported across safety, durability and sourcing.
Candidate profile
Essential: Former tyre, automotive, chemicals, engineered-materials or safety-critical manufacturing CEO, COO, CTO, supply-chain leader or Board director; product-safety and field-quality judgement; commodity and channel economics; material capex allocation.
Preferred: global OEM qualification, EV materials, rubber procurement, recall leadership, sustainability/product-claim assurance, Audit or Risk Committee chairing.
Eligibility and conflicts
Active IICA Databank inclusion with completed test or valid exemption is mandatory. Candidates must disclose relationships with vehicle OEMs, rubber and chemical suppliers, dealers, fleet customers, test agencies, competitors, auditors, technology partners and commodity interests.
First-year outcomes
- A Board-owned safety escalation and recall framework.
- Field data linked to design, manufacturing and supplier corrective action.
- Commodity and working-capital risk viewed on one economic basis.
- Capital gates that incorporate dealer and end-market evidence.
- Verified transition claims for new materials and EV-oriented products.