Sona Group to appoint non-promoters as CEOs

The Sona Group, a leading auto ancillary conglomerate, plans to name non-family members as chief executive officers to run the group companies.

The Rs 3,000 crore group, which plans to diversify into aerospace and nuclear industry, will select the CEOs from within the company managers after a stringent selection process. However, no timeframe has been fixed as yet.

Group Chairman Surinder Kapur said the family members will remain promoters, assess shifts in global business environment and guide the companies, but their day-to-day functioning will be run by the CEOs, he said. “In corporate India, when the second generation members come on board they squabble. I’d like to avoid that,” Kapur said.

Kapur’s son Sunjay Kapur is the managing director of Sixt, a car rental company. Sunjay is married to Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor. His first son-in- law Gaurav Motwane is the CEO of Mahindra Sona, a maker of propeller shafts and other components for tractors. The second son-in-law Himanshu Koirala is an entrepreneur in alternative energy options like solar energy. His two daughters, Suparna and Mandira are into publishing and luxury brand consultancy businesses.

Regarding his son and sons-in-law, Kapur said, “They don’t understand the businesses of Sona group companies in the true sense. This means they should not get into the operational part of the business.”

While the three male members will become executive chairmen of the Sona Group companies, Kapur’s two daughters and daughter in law will also be inducted into the board later.

The succession plan Kapur has put in place draws from the Toyoda family (which owns Japanese auto maker Toyota) and the supervisory structure in German companies where founding family members only play a fiduciary role.

“It’s a hybrid model between the two where founding family members will be there to communicate the values of the company and give confidence to employees during difficult times,” says Kapur.