Brands
TVS Motor’s Sudarshan Venu named Autocar Professional Person of the Year 2025
MUMBAI: Sudarshan Venu has had a vintage year. Autocar Professional has named the tvs motor chairman and managing director its Person of the Year 2025, recognising a leadership run that has propelled one of India’s most storied two-wheeler makers firmly onto the global podium.
Chosen by the publication’s editorial team, the award honours an industry leader whose decisions have materially shaped the Indian automotive sector’s direction and competitiveness. This year, the spotlight falls on Venu for engineering a sharp strategic turnaround that has lifted tvs motor into the world’s top three two-wheeler manufacturers by volume, overtaking Yamaha and making it only the second Indian brand to crack the elite club.
The rise has been anything but accidental. Under Venu, tvs has tightened execution, gained share in scooters, premium motorcycles and electric two-wheelers, and built an export engine that now contributes close to a quarter of revenue. Growth has been paired with healthier margins and sustained profitability, underscoring a model built for durability, not quick wins.
Autocar Professional editors cited a leadership style that blends discipline with ambition. Group business editor, pointed to Venu’s long game: a refusal to chase volume at the expense of fundamentals, and a focus on capability building and brand elevation. Moves such as acquiring Norton Motorcycles and Italy’s Engines Engineering signal a clear intent to compete in the global premium arena while lifting engineering depth across the portfolio.
The message is clear. In a fast-evolving two-wheeler market, scale alone no longer cuts it. Vision, patience and precision do. On that score, Sudarshan Venu has set the pace — and the rest of the industry is scrambling to keep up.
Brands
Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
