New Delhi: PB Balaji, the group CFO of Tata Motors, will take charge as the CEO of British marquee Jaguar Land Rover from Nov this year, becoming the first Indian to lead the luxury car ompany in an executive role. Balaji will succeed Adrian Mardell, who expressed his desire to retire from JLR after three years as CEO and 35 years with the company.After acquisition of the brands in 2008, there have been four CEOs, but none of them were Indian. David Smith served as the CEO between 2008 and 2010, followed by Ralf Speth who worked between 2010 and 2020. Former Renault CEO Thierry Bollore was the CEO between 2020 and 2022, after which Mardell took charge.Balaji has been serving as the CFO of Tata Motors since Nov 2017 and has a cumulative experience of 32 years in the automotive and consumer goods industries across finance and supply chain functions. He led large, diverse, global teams in multi-cultural environments out of Mumbai, London, Singapore and Switzerland and was closely associated with the successful transformation at the Tata Motors Group, the Indian auto major said in a statement.“I am delighted to appoint Balaji as the incoming CEO of the company. The search for a suitable candidate to lead JLR was undertaken by the board for the past few months and after careful consideration, it was decided to appoint Balaji,” N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Jaguar Land Rover PLC, Tata Motors, and Tata Sons said. “He has been associated with the company for the past many years and is familiar with the company, its strategy and has been working with the JLR leadership team. This move will ensure that we continue to accelerate our journey to Reimagine JLR.”Balaji said that over the past eight years he grew to know and love the company and the global brands. “I look forward to working with the team to take it to even greater heights. I thank Adrian for his immense contributions and wish him well for his next innings.”The incoming CEO has a B.Tech in mechanical engineering from IIT Chennai and a post-graduate diploma in management from IIM Kolkata.
