The Conversation ANISH SHAH

Anish Shah, MD & CEO, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), took charge of the group from Pawan Goenka at a time the economy was under a lockdown. Shah, the first professional CEO to have complete oversight of the group in its 75-year history, says M&M aims to dominate the SUV segment again and will not hesitate to pull away from businesses that don’t make financial sense.

- PAVAN LALL

GROWTH WITH CAUTION

It’s been around a year since you’ve been running the group. What is the one big change that you have implemented?

Technically, I’ve been in this role since April (2021), but a lot of the work started in April last year when we started taking the tough decisions. The one big change is going back to the group’s earlier fiscal discipline. Ten years ago, we had leadership that included Bharat Doshi and Uday Phadke, who really drove fiscal discipline. We may have lost that for a variety of reasons, but it was important to get it back, and we are on track.

What has been done to maintain a tighter ship? In the long term, which businesses will break rank, chart a stronger course and see growth in multiples?