india inc.shifting gears

Malo Le Masson currently Heads the Product Strategy & Planning at Hero MotoCorp.

He is in charge of Steering the Portfolio expansion of Hero as well as the Concept definition for each new models.

He joined Hero from Infiniti, premium car brand of Nissan Motor Co., where he was in charge of their Product Long term strategy since 2013.

Prior to that he was leading the development of the latest Micra at Nissan Global Technical Center, in Japan.

His career spans from Engineering role to various area of Product Planning, at European and Global level.

French national, he brings a broad perspective having lived in different countries such as Tunisia, France, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong … and now India.

Passionate by the Automotive industry, whether with Two or Four Wheels, he defines his passion as "Alive for mobility that moves you, physically and emotionally"

Akilur Rahman, CTO - ABB India has more than 28 years of experience in Corporate Research, Business R&D, Technology Management, Engineering, Business and Product Development in ABB.

He has Master’s degree in Technology (Electrical Engineering) from IIT Kharagpur with wide knowledge of power and automation technology applications in utilities and industries. He has held various international and global roles, having worked in India, Germany and Switzerland. Akilur has been responsible for setting up and establishing global software product development and integration in India for power and process automation products and systems.

He also led the global initiative - Engineering Improvement and Cyber security for Process Automation. In his most recent role, Akilur was head of ABB’s corporate research center in Bangalore. In his current role as CTO, ABB India, he is leading ABB's core technology application in India and driving Digitalization and Industrial IoT initiatives with customers using co-innovation and co-creation approach.

Akilur has been a speaker and panelist at various international conferences and seminars.

Hemanth is the founder and heads the business in a Bosch internally funded startup which offers Internet of Things based solutions powered by an Artificial Intelligence based engine focusing on context aware personalization. In retail, this technology enables better customer experience through personalization of their in-store experience based on their in-store location and seamless transition to online channels. This, in addition to other digital solutions from Bosch India focusing on operation management and IT applications help retail business to address the key areas of reducing cost and engaging customer for improved sales. Other than retail, this technology is also used in automotive applications for providing personalized recommendations.

Hemanth joined Bosch in 2003, in the Embedded Powertrain division of RBEI. With his passion for technology in Automotive, he took up several technology roles including a global product management role for European OEMs. After his Executive MBA in General Management, he took up the cross-functional role of Technical and Executive Assistant to the CEO of Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, a CMMI L5 company in India, with a focus on Stakeholder, Strategy and Business. His overall experience across technology and business later provided him the avenue to generate an idea and setup an entire business through the startup iero, for which he received complete investment and support from Bosch management.

Hemanth is interested in music, trekking and loves to play tennis.

On the personal front, Hemanth is married to Deepthy and has a 3 year old daughter, Tanishka.

Kamal Bali, 58, joined the Volvo Group in India in April 2014, as Managing Director and a Board member of the company.

With an illustrious career spanning over three decades, predominantly in the automotive industry, Kamal has worked for well-known Indian brands and established multinational corporations in India. He has had an insightful experience in the functional areas of sales, marketing and supply chain, before taking over P&L responsibilities in the year 2002.

An engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and an alumnus of St. Joseph’s Academy Dehradun, Kamal began his professional career as a management trainee with the Eicher Group in 1981. Prior to spearheading the Volvo Group in India, Kamal was working as President & CEO of Singapore Technologies (STK) in India, establishing the brand LeeBoy.

Kamal has accumulated precious cross-functional knowledge, is respected for his values’ based leadership and professionalism with strong ethos.

Kamal is a thought leader and an active speaker at various national and international forums. Currently, he also holds the following positions:-

• Chairman of CII Karnataka
• Board Member of Swedish Chamber of Commerce
• Industry Advisory Executive Panel (IAEP) member of CIMA, London
• Member of Karnataka Government Vision Group (Industry)
• Board Member of Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneswar
• Member of the Joint Board of Directors of Xavier Emlyon Global School of Business (XEMGSB)

Madhukar Dhakappa is a Partner with PwC India and is a part of the Corporate and International tax practice in Bangalore.

Madhukar has over 14 years of experience advising several large multinational and Indian companies on a range of tax and regulatory issues across various sectors and industries, including IT/ITES, electronics, industrial products, aerospace and defence, pharmaceuticals and e-commerce.

His key areas of expertise include corporate tax compliance and advisory (including entry strategies, cross-border planning, investment structuring, etc.), complex business restructuring and planning, exchange control matters and dispute resolution. He has been involved in litigation strategy for various clients across industries and has also successfully argued complex tax matters before the Tax Tribunal.

He has authored articles on complex technical matters and regularly speaks on tax matters at industry forums.

He is a commerce graduate from Bangalore University and is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Role and Position

• HEAD- Instrumentation & Control
• Responsible for delivery of Instrumentation, Control & Automation projects to the global customers
• New competency development across industry segments in the area of Controls
• Support Digitalization initiative for Process Plant customers

Education

• Degree in Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

Experience

• 27+ years of industrial experience in Instrumentation, Control & Automation Solution design for Process plants and various Machineries
• Controls Design of Plastic Processing and Packaging Machineries
• Electrical, Instrumentation and Controls design of CPG and Chemical segment customers
• Managing design delivery of diverse projects in Instrumentation, Control & Automation globally through a large team of Engineers

Accomplishments

• Development of Digital Solution Accelerators for Plant Control & Automation
• Implementation of Control & Automation Solutions across Industry segments

Education

• Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Business Administration

Background

• Praveen has over 18 years of experience in Industry and around 12 years in the field of Indirect Tax Consulting. He has been assisting variety of Clients on Indirect Tax advisory and compliance related matters, including structuring of business processes in areas of Service Tax, Value Added Tax, among other Indirect Taxes.

Industry Experience

• 18 years’ experience in handling Indirect Tax matters for a multi national manufacturing company in India . Extensive experience in formulating strategies and plans for optimizing tax benefits through effective structuring of the Supply Chain, handling & ensuring timely compliances and adherence to procedural requirements of Indirect Tax laws of 20 odd States across India.

Consulting Experience

• Experience of around 12 years in Indirect Tax Consulting on Compliance & Advisory matters of MNC’s from various industry segments. Has assisted Clients in conducting Cost Benefit Analysis to decide the type of Unit, setting up of the Units, streamlining their internal processes and ongoing Compliances. Before joining KPMG in April 2011, he had been with the other Big 4 Firm from April 2005 to March 2011.

GST Experience

• Praveen has been actively involved in making presentations to various Clients and at Forums. He has led and completed Impact Assessment assignments across Industry sectors. Praveen has written articles on various impact areas of GST and has spoken at Seminars conducted by various leading Chambers of Commerce and Industry Sectors.

Mr. N P Singh joined the Indian Revenue Service in 1975 and worked for more than 37 years in the Income Tax Department. He retired in October 2012 as Principal Chief Commissioner, Mumbai, an Apex scale equivalent to the rank of Special Secretary, Government of India.  He has worked in many different states like Punjab, Karnataka and Maharashtra. His specialization is in Corporate tax and Investigation. He was also Director General Training for the Income Tax Department.

After retirement, he is judiciously dedicating his time between work and service to the society. He is a Senior Advisor with BSRANDCO, an affiliate of KPMG. His social work involves counselling children of Tenth standard of two government schools in Bangalore.

In addition to Masters in Economics, he has been trained at the International Institute of Public Administration, Paris during which he worked in Tax offices in France and the United Kingdom. 

He is a keen sportsman and is regular in playing Badminton and Golf. He is also an avid reader of Fiction.

Mr. Subrahmanya Sastry is a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers with over 25 years of experience, including 20+  years in consulting, spanning business consulting and technology driven transformations. Mr. Sastry has worked in leading consulting organizations with responsibilities for practice development, delivery of consulting services in the areas of supply chain management, strategy and ERP implementations.

His key expertise is in technology driven transformation, that includes:

• Delivery management for technology enabled process transformation programs for enterprises in the manufacturing sectors
• Business process consulting in the areas of supply chain planning and supply chain package implementation.
• Delivery management for large IT programs and global roll out programs.

He has run multiple engagements for technology driven HR transformation.
His areas of interest include Technology Adoption, Transformation Management, Process Design and Design Thinking.

Mr. Vamsi Ayyagari is the Software Engineering Director of Global Operations at Dell Technologies, responsible for the IT development & delivery of Product Design, Supply Chain Planning, Trade & Reverse Logistics solutions. Mr. Vamsi has professional experience in delivering effective solutions that leverage state-of-the-art technologies in high-tech & discrete manufacturing industries.

Mr. Veerendra Vasamsetty has 17+ years of experience in the industry across various domains viz Industrial Automation, Automotive, Networking & Data communications. He is working as Innovation Manager for Industrial Automation Business unit of Schneider-Electric India R&D. His primary responsibilities are Delivering Innovation and Managing the engineering functions working on Cloud & Mobile technologies. He has 16 patents filed under various Innovation activities.

Dattatreya Gaur is the Vice President and Business Unit head for Product Develoment, Engineering and Smart Manufacturing Solutions at Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Pvt Ltd.

He is passionate about technologies and business. His business unit designs and develops products in diverse domains – Industrial automation and smart manufacturing; automotive electronics, steering and diagnostics; power tools, security systems, HVAC systems and home appliances. They run three COE for product reliability, NVH (Noise Vibration and Harshness) and Plastics and a User Experience studio for design.

As a Strategic Portfolio Leader for Industry 4.0, he mentors strategic initiative of Connected Industry from RBEI, India, as an integrated E2E solution provider for Bosch manufacturing plants as well as non-Bosch global customers.

Mr. Dattatreya Gaur is an electronics engineering graduate from MNIT Jaipur and has done an executive management program at IIMB. He is an expert in introducing Lean Management in all indirect areas. He has helped many Bosch group companies worldwide in improving their software engineering and development processes based on CMMI framework.

During the last 22 years with Bosch, he has worked and lived in India, Germany and USA. Prior to joining Bosch he had worked for 6 years with BEL (Bharat Electronics) in development of Radar and Sonar systems for ISRO and DRDO.