Finolex Cables promotes insider Mahesh Viswanathan to chief executive

PUNE: No outside search, no headhunter drama. Finolex Cables has named Mahesh Viswanathan as its chief executive officer, handing the top job to a chartered accountant who has spent 17 of his four decades in the industry quietly shoring up the Pune-based firm’s finances and operations from within.

The appointment, announced on 1st June 2026, comes at a pointed moment for a company that is in the middle of reinventing itself. Finolex Cables, long known as one of India’s leading manufacturers of electrical and communication cables, is pushing hard into consumer electricals, smart home solutions and allied categories, a bet that the brand’s distribution muscle and engineering heritage can carry it well beyond wire and cable.

Viswanathan, who steps into the role having been a fixture of the leadership team, did not waste time on pleasantries. “Our focus will be on strengthening our core businesses, expanding into high-growth categories, driving operational excellence, and delivering greater value to our customers, partners, shareholders, and employees,” he said in a statement accompanying the announcement.

The company, listed on both the BSE and NSE under the codes 500144 and FINCABLES respectively, has manufacturing facilities in Pimpri and Urse in Pune, as well as in Goa and Uttarakhand. Its product portfolio already spans lighting, water heaters, fans, switches, switchgear, room heaters, irons and electrical conduits alongside its cable business.

For Finolex, the logic of the appointment is straightforward: continuity over disruption. Viswanathan knows where the bodies are buried and, more usefully, where the growth levers are. In a market where India’s infrastructure boom, housing surge and rising consumer appetite are converging, that institutional knowledge may prove to be the sharpest tool in the box.