Mr Hemant Luthra is a member of the Management Board of M&M and as President of Systech set himself an ambitious task of building a USD 1 bn business for M&M in a period of 5 years. The Systech team has succeeded in building a USD 800 mn business in 2 years with Mahindra Forging, Mahindra Castings and Mahindra Engineering being the primary drivers of this growth. In the process Mahindra Forging has established itself as amongst the top 2 in the country and amongst the top 5 in the world whilst Systech has created a market capitalization of USD 600 mn and an EVA of USD 200 mn. Both market cap and EVA are expected to increase as more Companies get listed.

Hemant joined M&M as Executive Vice President - Corporate Strategy in December 2001 and was involved in a number of Strategic initiatives across different sectors and group companies. He serves on several Boards and is the Chairman of some [including the Supervisory Boards of M&M's German subsidiaries].

Hemant has 35 years of varied and rich work experience in Operations, Finance, Business Development and Private Equity, which is of special interest to M&M today as it seeks to consolidate its leadership in different verticals on the back of its strong financial performance.

Hemant started his career with IBM in India where he was directly responsible for a substantial part of the business [with responsibility for both Large Accounts and the Finance Industry vertical.] He was seconded to IBM Singapore as Marketing Advisor and was the recipient of several awards including one from the Chairman for his special contribution to teamwork.

After IBM Hemant spent 18 years with the Thapar Group, a $1 Billion conglomerate with interest in Paper, Chemicals & Engineering. As Group CFO and then as COO of the Group's flagship company BILT, he served on the Board of several joint ventures of the Group [with Dupont, Mitsubishi, OKI and served as Chairman of the JV with Maersk Shipping.]

Following his entrepreneurial instinct Hemant then founded a Private Equity fund for the ING Group and served as its first CEO. He later joined the Essar Group as CEO of their Telecom business and helped engineer a lucrative merger of the business with Hutchison. He then worked with Enron India as CEO of their Broad Band business.

Hemant is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (1970) where he was nominated for the President's Gold Medal for his all-round skills. He is an alumni of the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School (AMP115, 1994). He is an avid golfer and supports select charities for disadvantaged children.