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.
Brands
Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board
Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.
Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.
“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.
The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.
Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.
The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.
MAM
Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships
At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.
Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.
Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.
Brands
Brnd.me enters Europe as haircare brands power global expansion
Bengaluru: Brnd.me, the global consumer brands company formerly known as Mensa Brands, has entered the European market following strong momentum across the Middle East, the United States and Canada.
The company has launched across the UK, Germany, France and Spain, with plans to expand into Italy, the Netherlands and Poland over the next year. The push is being led by its haircare and aromatherapy brands, Botanic Hearth and Majestic Pure, marking Brnd.me’s first structured expansion into Europe.
The European beauty market represents a total addressable opportunity of over $4 billion across haircare and aromatherapy, supported by high digital adoption and demand for accessible, performance-led products.
Brnd.me’s hair care and aromatherapy business currently operates at an annual run rate of around $6 million, with Botanic Hearth and Majestic Pure delivering roughly 10 per cent month-on-month growth, driven by expansion and rising repeat demand.
To support regional growth, the company has appointed a general manager based in Germany and is evaluating investments in warehousing and local team expansion.
Early traction has been strong. Within weeks of launch, Botanic Hearth’s rosemary hair oil ranked among the top five hair oils in Germany, signalling strong consumer pull in a competitive market.
Brnd.me founder and chief executive officer Ananth Narayanan, said Europe represents the next phase of the company’s international strategy. He added that the European business is expected to scale to a $10 million annual run rate by the end of 2026, with long-term ambitions to reach $60 million over the next six years.
The company’s Europe strategy centres on digital-first distribution, repeat demand and TikTok-led discovery, alongside direct-to-consumer expansion to strengthen brand equity and margins.
The move also aligns with growing EU–India trade engagement, supporting long-term sourcing and cross-border supply chains.
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