Toyota Kirloskar grapples with exodus of top brass

The most visible exit was that of Deputy Managing Director K K Swamy, who quit last month to join Volkswagen India as its first Indian managing director. Swamy is set to take charge at VW on July 21.

The prominent names that have left TKM recently, the sources say, include Kamalakar Takawale, head of product design and development, who has also moved to Volkswagen India.

Vikas Jain, former sales deputy general manager (north), has moved to General Motors, while Shohanlal Maine, general manager (production), has joined Mahindra & Mahindra. Sources within TKM suggest that Maine was slated to be the head of TKM's new plant near Bangalore.

Other senior level exits include Debashis Mitra (DGM sales) and Santosh Iyer, who handled advertising for TKM.

While Mitra has taken up an assignment with Daimler India, Iyer has moved to Ford India. Neeraj Mahajan, formerly the head of customer relations, has joined a retail chain, which also has a Nissan dealership, in Dubai.

A TKM spokesperson, responding to a mail from Business Standard, said, "With regard to your questions on employee exits from TKM, please be informed that it is not our policy to comment on individual exits. Leaving the company is an independent decision. Employee churn is a common phenomenon across industries."

Industry experts do not agree with this completely. "It may be true that every company goes through these cycles of churns. However, exits from Toyota cannot be seen in the same way. Competitors seek TKM executives for the skills they pick in their job, like the Toyota Production Systems," said an industry observer.

E Balaji, CEO of staffing company, Ma Foi Management Consultants, said, "We cannot comment specifically about a company. But we see this as a third wave in the automotive industry with the first wave triggered by Maruti in the early eighties, second by Hyundai and Ford in the mid-nineties and the current one led by companies like Nissan etc. Whenever such a wave happens, employee churns, too, will happen."