Ravi Venkatesan is credited with imparting a new vision, dynamism and investor – savviness to Cummins India Ltd.

Cummins India Ltd, a 51% subsidiary of Cummins Engg Company, USA (CECO), is India’s largest manufacturer of diesel engines catering to the non-automotive segment with market share in excess of 65%.

Ravi Venkatesan’s academic background included the B.Tech from IIT Bombay, MS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue and then MBA from Harvard.

He did his 2-month summer stint during engineering at Cummins India Ltd (then Kirloskar Cummins), worked for three-and-a-half years in CECO’ Columbus plant as a manufacturing engineer, and returned to CECO after MBA! He started out his career working on strategic sourcing decisions for CECO. His first assignment in India was to rescue Tata Cummins Ltd, which he did with great success. He was then named CEO of Cummins’ Indian operations and Chairman of Cummins India Ltd.

Venkatesan is a member of the Executive Council of the Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturing. He has written three articles published in the Harvard Business Review, “The Strategy that Wouldn’t Travel”, Strategic Sourcing – to Make or not to Make”, and “Cummins Engine Flexes its Factories”.

He was recently elected “Outstanding Industrial Engineer” for the year 2000 by Purdue University for his contributions to the field.