Maruti veteran Mayank Pareek shifts to Tata Motors

The author has posted comments on this article Reeba Zachariah, TNN | Sep 29, 2014, 09.54PM IST

MUMBAI: Tata Motors has snatched Mayank Pareek, former chief operating officer (marketing and sales) of rival Maruti Suzuki, to be its passenger car business unit's president. Pareek succeeds Ranjit Yadav, who is moving into a new role within Tata Motors as head of international business for passenger and commercial vehicles. Pareek, who will take up his post on October 1, will also be a member of Tata Motors' corporate steering committee (CSC), which oversees the operations of the auto major. The CSC, headed by chairman Cyrus Mistry, was formed following the sudden demise of the company's managing director Karl Slym early this year.

Pareek's appointment comes at a time when the Indian auto giant looks to strengthen sales of its domestic passenger vehicle unit, which reported a decline in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 as against the year-ago period.

A product of Indian Institute of Technology-BHU, Pareek was one of the known faces at Maruti Suzuki, where he had worked for more than two decades and was involved in several launches, including the Celerio hatchback and the Swift DZire compact sedan. He has also managed to keep the Japanese carmaker's sales going over the past two years when the Indian automobile industry was on a slump. "His extensive experience in the passenger car market will play a significant role in harnessing Tata Motors growth potential to help position the company as one of the leading passenger car manufacturers in India," Tata Motors said in a statement.

After almost five years, Tata Motors, part of the $100-billion Tata conglomerate, launched its first new offering, the Zest compact Sedan in August to boost the passenger vehicle unit's performance as it was losing market share to foreign players. The company's domestic passenger vehicle deliveries dipped 37% in the June quarter, according to industry body, SIAM India. However, in recent quarters, the weak performance of Tata Motors' India unit has been more than compensated by sales of its British unit, Jaguar Land Rover.