Anish Shah is new MD-CEO of Mahindra group

When Anand Mahindra becomes non-executive chairman in November, Shah will become the first professional MD and CEO in the history of the Mahindra group to have a complete oversight of and responsibility for the Mahindra group businesses.

Mahindra and Mahindra's board of directors has appointed Anish Shah as the managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), effective April 2, 2021.

He is currently the deputy MD and group chief financial officer.

The move follows the top management succession plan announced last year by the tractor-to-technology firm on December 20.

When Anand Mahindra becomes non-executive chairman in November, Shah will become the first professional MD and CEO in the history of the Mahindra group to have a complete oversight of and responsibility for the Mahindra group businesses, the company said in a statement.

Pawan Goenka will retire as the MD and CEO, and member of the board of directors of M&M effective April 2, 2021. In his role as the MD and CEO, he led the automobile and farm equipment sectors. Rajesh Jejurikar, executive director will take full charge of these sectors and will report to Shah.

“On behalf of the board, I salute the work accomplished by Pawan throughout his twenty-seven years career in the company, which has resulted in its strong growth. My gratitude to him for making the transition as smooth and seamless as possible throughout the last year,” said Anand Mahindra, the group’s chairman, in the statement.

“One of the reasons we had succeeded and thrived over the past 75 years was that we were good at introducing changes in the right measure at the right time,” said Mahindra, adding that Shah is the right leader for the Mahindra group.

Shah will have a complete oversight of all Mahindra group businesses including Mahindra’s global operations, the transformation agenda and, synergizing and driving several strategic programs, said Mahindra.

“Anish embodies the spirit of Rise and brings an exceptional leadership track record, strong international exposure and a unique ability to forge long-standing relationships with our customers, partners and employees. I believe that there is no better person to lead Mahindra into the future,” said Mahindra.

 “I look forward to working closely with Anand and all my colleagues to write a new chapter of growth and to drive positive change in the lives of our stakeholders to enable them to Rise,” said Shah. 

He joined Mahindra in 2015 as the group president-strategy, where he led strategy development; built capabilities such as digitisation and data sciences; enabled synergies across Group companies and managed the risk and performance review organisations.

Before joining Mahindra, Shah was president and CEO of GE Capital India, where he led the transformation of the business, including a turnaround of its SBI Card joint venture. His career at GE spanned 14 years, during which he held several leadership positions at GE Capital’s US and global units. He also has diverse experience with global businesses beyond GE. He led Bank of America's US debit products business.

He started his career with Citibank in Mumbai before moving to Boston with Bain & Company as a strategy consultant. He received a PhD from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, a Masters degree from Carnegie Mellon and a post-graduate diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.