GE South Asia CEO Banmali Agrawala to join Tata Sons; lead infra, defence sectors

Banmali Agrawala, president and CEO, GE South Asia will join the Tata Group as president defence, infrastructure and aerospace

Energy-sector veteran Banmali Agrawala has been appointed as President, Infrastructure, Defence and Aerospace at Tata Sons, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

In his previous assignment, Agrawala has served as the president and chief executive of GE South Asia. He will take up his new role at Tata Sons effective October 1, 2017 and report to Executive Chairman N Chandrasekaran.

This will be Agrawala's second stint at the Tata Group. In his previous stint, at Tata Power, Agrawala served as a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Director – Strategy and Business Development. He was also nominated to the Board of other Tata Group companies and joint ventures.

Commenting on his appointment, Agrawala said, “I'm delighted to be back as part of the Tata group and contribute towards the phenomenal opportunities that the Tata group has in the core infrastructure related sectors, in India as well as globally. I look forward to taking all my learnings and experience from GE onto my new role at Tata Sons.”

Since Chandrasekaran took the corner office at the Bombay House earlier this year, this is the fourth high-profile appointment at Tata Sons. In May, Saurabh Agrawal was appointed as the chief financial officer of Tata Sons and Shuva Mandal replaced Bharat Vasani as the group's general counsel. He also hired Ankur Verma, former managing director of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's investment banking division in March this year.

“The Tata group has a significant footprint in the infrastructure, defence and aerospace sectors. Banmali’s global experience in these industries will be very beneficial as we build scale and aspire for the next phase of growth. As part of the Tata Sons leadership team, his knowledge in several areas, including leadership development, digital infrastructure, innovation and technology, will be very beneficial to the Tata group," N Chandrasekaran said.

Prior to Tata Power, Banmali was with the Wartsila Group for over 21 years and at the time of leaving the Group, he was the Managing Director of Wartsila India Limited and a member of Wartsila Global Power Plant Management Board.

A Mechanical Engineering graduate from the Mangalore University, Agrawala is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School.