Executive Forum: Testing the Limits by Leading from the Back
Dear Friends of CEIBS,
Please join us for our upcoming CEIBS Executive Forum on June 4, 2020, with Mr. Ravi Kant, CEIBS Visiting Leader and Former CEO and Vice Chairman of Tata Motors, who will give a lecture on Testing the Limits by Leading from the Back.
Mr. Kant has more than four decades of experience in leadership positions at organisations with very different customer types and in very different life stages, including start-ups such as Titan and Hindustan Aluminium; established businesses such as Philips, Tata Motors and Hawkins; and strong entrepreneurial ventures such as LML and Kinetic Engineering. During this time, he has tested limits of these organisations in many ways – by championing white space thinking with the Tata Ace and the Nano, through the acquisition of Daewoo and Jaguar Land Rover, and by redefining existing thought spaces at Phillips.
In addition to his corporate experience, Mr. Kant possesses a passion for deep dives and lasting change and has dedicated a lot of effort to education, health and society. Mr. Kant has served as Chairman of the Indian Institute of Management, Rohatak; and Chairman of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Board for Akhandjyoti Hospital – a hospital engaged in eliminating blindness from economically disadvantaged parts of India. For Mr. Kant, testing the limits is not only about increasing shareholder value, but also about enabling individuals, communities and society as a whole to push their own boundaries from the back.
About the speaker
Mr. Ravi Kant has nearly 50 years of corporate experience in extractive, consumer durables and automobile industries. He spent 15 years at Tata Motors, where he served as CEO and Managing Director and later as Vice Chairman of the Board. He led Tata’s acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover and Daewoo and established Tata Motors Thailand and other companies, increasing Tata’s revenue from $1.5 billion to $39 billion (USD). Under his watch, Tata Motors launched the Tata Ace, a mini truck which nearly doubled the size of India’s commercial vehicle market, and the Nano, a compact care which serves as a case study in innovation. He has served as chairman of Tata Advanced Materials, Hispano Carrocera, Spain, Tata Motors European Technical Centre, UK Tata Marco Polo, Tata Thailand and Tata Daewoo, and as director for Tata Industries, Voltas, Vedanta Ltd. (one of the largest natural resource companies in the world) and Jaguar Land Rover.
Prior to Tata Motors, Mr. Kant was a member of the board at Philips India. He currently serves on the board of Kone Ltd., one of the top elevator companies in the world, and Hawkins Cookers Ltd., a well-known consumer durables company. He is also on the Advisory Board of Accenture India.
Mr. Kant studied at Mayo College Ajmer, received his Bachelor of Technology (Honours) from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, and Masters of Science in Management Techniques in Industry from Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Mr. Kant is an Industrial Professor at the University of Warwick and a Distinguished Professor at IIT Kharagpur. He has also served on the Advisory Board of CEIBS, where he is currently a Visiting Leader.
Date: June 4, 2020
Time: 18:30-20:00 (CST), 16:30-18:00 (IST)
Venue: Online
Language: English
Agenda:
18:30－18:35 Opening and introduction by Prof. Rama Velamuri
18:35－19:30 Speech by Mr. Ravi Kant, CEIBS Visiting Leader and Former CEO and Vice Chairman of Tata Motors
19:30－20:00 Q&A with Mr. Ravi Kant moderated by Prof. Rama Velamuri
Contact: For enquiries, please contact Ms. Laura Zeng at execforum@ceibs.edu or call +86-21-2890-5127.
