MAM
Tarun Garg takes charge: Hyundai India gets its first homegrown boss
GURUGRAM: The corner office at Hyundai Motor India has finally gone desi. On 1 January Tarun Garg became the first Indian to steer the Korean carmaker’s Indian subsidiary as managing director and chief executive officer—a milestone 29 years in the making. It is less a changing of the guard than a vote of confidence in India’s automotive swagger.
Garg is no rookie. With 32 years navigating the treacherous bends of India’s car business, he is that rare beast: an engineer who can read balance sheets and a marketer who understands manufacturing floors. A mechanical engineer from Delhi Technological University and an MBA from IIM Lucknow—India’s premier management stable—he cut his teeth at Maruti Suzuki, eventually rising to executive director of marketing, logistics, parts and accessories. That is where he learned the dark arts of India’s hyper-competitive auto retail game.
But it was at Hyundai where Garg truly hit his stride. First as head of sales, service and marketing, then as whole-time director and chief operating officer, he orchestrated a remarkable run. Under his watch, Hyundai notched three consecutive years of record sales, minted its fattest-ever profit margins, and pulled off India’s biggest-ever initial public offering in 2024 — a whopping debut that made global headlines. He also steered Hyundai to dominance in India’s booming sport-utility vehicle segment, an achievement in a market where SUVs have become the new sedans.
His expertise spans the full automotive playbook: sales strategy, distribution networks, financial management, product planning, and brand communication. More tellingly, he appears to grasp that cars are no longer just metal and wheels but rolling software platforms. Not bad for a warm-up act.
Now the main event begins. Garg’s pitch? Transform Hyundai India into a “global hub” whilst doubling down on electric vehicles, hybrids, and connected mobility. The shopping list is hefty: Rs 45,000 crore (roughly $5.3 billion) earmarked for investment by 2030. That is serious money chasing serious ambitions—making India not just a market, but a manufacturing muscle for exports to emerging economies.
His strategy rests on four pillars that sound sensible until you consider the potholes ahead: future-ready tech (read: EVs in a country still sorting out charging infrastructure), people power (empowering dealers and suppliers), customer obsession (a given in cutthroat Indian auto retail), and “Make in India, Made for the World” muscle-flexing. Easier said than done when global supply chains hiccup and tariffs loom. Still, Garg talks a good game. “India’s automotive industry is at an exciting inflection point,” he says. Fair enough—he has earned the right to dream big.
Those who have worked with him describe a people-first boss who blends hard-nosed commercial instincts with genuine empathy—a combination rarer than hen’s teeth in India’s often cutthroat corporate culture. His “Samarth by Hyundai” initiative, aimed at improving accessibility for people with disabilities, suggests he is not all spreadsheets and sales targets. It is the sort of programme that wins awards and hearts, though the real test is whether it moves metal off forecourts.
What sets Garg apart is his ability to juggle the contradictions of modern Indian business: pushing digitisation whilst managing thousands of old-school dealers, championing EVs in a country addicted to petrol, and exporting globally whilst satisfying voracious domestic demand. He talks of “agility, conviction and purpose”—the trinity of management buzzwords—but his track record suggests substance beneath the jargon.
The timing is exquisite. India’s car market is booming, electrification is (slowly) gathering pace, and Korean headquarters clearly reckons local nous beats imported management. Whether Garg can navigate India’s chaotic roads, fickle buyers, and the looming EV transition remains to be seen. But for now, Hyundai India has put an Indian hand on the wheel. Buckle up.
MAM
Ember Cookware appoints Amit Singh as chief of supply chain
10-year veteran to lead operations as brand scales across D2C, quick commerce and retail.
MUMBAI: Ember just handed its supply chain the perfect seasoning because when your cookware is non-toxic and non-stick, the operations behind it better be fast and flawless. Ember Cookware has appointed Amit Singh as chief of supply chain and Services, bolstering its leadership team at a pivotal growth phase. Singh brings over a decade of experience in supply chain strategy, operations and large-scale network buildouts.
He began his career at Singapore-based retail giant Giant Hypermarket before joining Pharmeasy in 2015, where he played a foundational role in building and scaling its pan-India supply chain across B2B and B2C channels. At API Holdings, he later led supply chain operations for North India, managing end-to-end execution across complex, multi-city networks.
In his new role, Amit will oversee Ember’s complete supply chain and service ecosystem including sourcing, manufacturing coordination, logistics, last-mile delivery, post-purchase support and workforce development. His mandate focuses on building cost-efficient, resilient operations that shorten fulfilment times, strengthen inventory management and deliver a consistently high-quality consumer experience as the brand expands nationally.
Ember Cookware co-founder & CEO Siddharth Gadodia said, “Supply chain is where growth either holds or breaks. As we scale across channels and geographies, we need operations that are efficient, resilient, and built for speed, without ever compromising on the consumer experience. Amit has done this before, at real scale.”
Ember Cookware co-founder & CMO Himanshi Tandon added, “As we scale, supply chain efficiency becomes as important as product and brand. Amit’s mandate is to build the operational foundations that make our promise consistent at scale.”
Amit Singh commented, “Ember is building something genuinely different, a category-defining brand with a clear purpose and the ambition to match. I’m looking forward to building supply chain infrastructure that doesn’t just keep pace with growth, but enables it.”
The appointment forms part of Ember’s broader push to deepen leadership across key functions as it invests in its Innovation Lab, proprietary material technologies and operational backbone to support national expansion.
In a kitchenware world where non-stick promises are easy but delivery is hard, Ember isn’t just cooking up products, it’s cooking up an operation that keeps every promise sizzling from factory to fork.
