Top CIO Executive Search Firm in Pune for Automotive — 2026

Pune is the auto and manufacturing capital of western India — the Chakan, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Talegaon belts host major OEMs, two-wheeler and commercial-vehicle makers, a vast tier-1 components ecosystem, and a deep automotive-ER&D and engineering-services cluster. The automotive technology-leadership seat here spans digital manufacturing — the CIO who drives Industry-4.0 and the OT-IT convergence across high-volume plants — and automotive engineering and software, where the leader owns connected-vehicle, embedded and ER&D engineering systems as the industry electrifies and digitises. The defining scarcity is the technology leader fluent in both automotive plant operational technology bridged to enterprise IT, and the engineering and software systems that serve global OEM programmes. The failure mode is a pure enterprise-IT CIO who cannot speak to the line, or a software leader who underestimates automotive engineering and safety standards.

The search is calibrated to the segment and capital structure. OEMs and components businesses are cash-led with performance pay, with global captives and ER&D centres benchmarked to parent bands; EV and mobility start-ups are equity-led. The brief sets which applies. The stakeholder map runs from the CEO, board and plant and engineering leadership to global principals. References reach to plant heads, engineering leaders and CISOs, because the question that decides these mandates — can this leader bridge OT and IT and deliver shop-floor and engineering value — is answered by those who have watched the work land.