2 Senior Execs Of Tata Motors Quit

Even as Tata Motors has been looking for a new CEO for four months, two senior executives of the company, who had a crucial role in launching the Zest and the Bolt models in the passenger vehicle division, have resigned.

The company confirmed that Ankush Arora, senior vice-president (commercial), and S Jayaraman, a senior executive of the product planning team, quit Tata Motors.

As the firm has been steadily losing market share, these launches will be crucial to drive its growth prospects. The models are part of the business revival strategy, planned by late Karl Slym, the managing director who passed away earlier this year.


The company has, however, played down the incident and said that there is “nothing out of the ordinary” in the development.

"Tata Motors has, in fact, one of the lowest attrition rates in the industry," a spokesperson said in an e-mail statement. "As far as plans ahead are concerned, Ranjit Yadav, as the head of the passenger vehicle business, is directly involved in the launch of our new cars, supported by a strong sales & marketing team. This is backed by the product planning and programme side, a strong team led by Tata Motors’ veteran Girish Wagh, for the last 16 months."

The company has witnessed a number of changes in its management in the recent years. These resignations come at a time when the hunt for Slym's successor is still on. Just a few weeks before tendering his resignation, Arora had talked about overhauling the sales and marketing at Tata Motors.

A similar development had taken place just before the launch of Nano in 2009 when Rajiv Dube, president of the Tata Motors passenger vehicle division, left the company.

In another development, Stefan Berger, who was working with the group chairman, Cyrus Mistry, following Slym's death, also left he company for ‘personal’ reason.


Some of the company's zonal managers have joined other firms while many others could be looking to move on, according to inside sources.