By Shobhana Subramanian
He isn’t the loudest man within the room. Neither is he given to grandstanding. However when the mud settles, the job is completed—and performed nicely. That, in some ways, captures Anish Shah, managing director and Group CEO of Mahindra & Mahindra: a frontrunner who was handed a uncommon carte blanche to remodel a storied conglomerate, and who has performed so with out diluting its core character.
When Shah took over in April 2021, M&M was one thing of a “bruised blue chip”. Just a few missteps had left the automotive enterprise struggling amid intense competitors. In lower than 5 years, Shah has turned the enterprise into one in all company India’s standout turnaround tales—a case examine in what ruthless focus and disciplined execution can ship. Since taking cost in April 2021, he has repeatedly pressured one easy thought: administration bandwidth is finite.
Unfold it too skinny, and each income and priorities endure. Capital, time and a spotlight, Shah believes, should circulate to the place returns justify them. Working in his understated type, Shah has steadily energised the organisation, pruning the place wanted and backing winners decisively. Nowhere is that this extra seen than within the automotive enterprise. And 2025 has been a defining 12 months.
In February, Mahindra overtook Hyundai to turn out to be India’s second-largest carmaker—no small feat in one of many world’s best passenger automobile markets.
By leaning laborious into its pure power in sports activities utility automobiles, the corporate displaced a deeply entrenched rival. SUVs have at all times been Mahindra’s soul. What modified beneath Shah was the precision with which that benefit was executed.
The numbers inform the story. Mahindra has now led the SUV phase for 2 consecutive years, including 390 foundation factors of income share year-on-year within the September quarter. Already. SUVs account for an enormous chunk of the corporate’s revenues; a couple of years in the past, this share was a lot smaller. Recognition is a part of it. Pricing energy is the opposite.
Being on the suitable aspect of a megatrend helps, however that can’t be sufficient. Success in SUVs isn’t just about lineage—it’s about designing the suitable fashions, providing the suitable variants, hitting the suitable worth factors and delivering inside acceptable ready intervals. If Mahindra is anticipated to promote near 650,000 passenger automobiles this 12 months, up from round 240,000 items in FY22, it’s as a result of Shah and his crew have mastered the choreography.
The IIM Ahmedabad alumnus—who had two stints with GE Capital for a complete of 14 years throughout international locations—began his skilled profession with Citibank, earlier than working with Bain & Firm. Shah, who has a PhD in Administration from Carnegie Mellon College’s Tepper Faculty of Enterprise, additionally had a stint with Financial institution of America.
Inside the corporate, Shah is commonly described as a “nuts-and-bolts” chief—obsessive about execution and illiberal of bottlenecks. The smoother manufacturing flows and sharply decreased ready intervals bear his stamp. Not way back, bookings for some Mahindra fashions far outstripped manufacturing capability, threatening to check buyer endurance. Shah moved shortly. Manufacturing capability was quadrupled in a brief span, a repair that required coordination throughout suppliers, vegetation and logistics. The corporate’s push into electrical automobiles, too, is shaping up steadily reasonably than theatrically.
The market has taken discover. Mahindra’s market capitalisation has surged from slightly below Rs 1 lakh crore in March 2021 to about Rs 4.5 lakh crore right now. In 2025—a 12 months when broader fairness markets have struggled—the inventory is up about 20%.
Extra tellingly, Mahindra now trades at a better price-to-earnings a number of than Maruti Suzuki on FY27 estimates. That premium displays investor religion in Shah’s capital self-discipline and his potential to ship on the group’s bold “5–14X” development targets throughout companies.
Close to-term plans embody an eight-fold growth in SUVs and light-weight business automobiles over FY20–30, implying a compound annual income development of 20% over FY26–30. The Road can be betting that Shah will unlock worth in key subsidiaries, together with monetary companies and expertise—an optimism evident in near-universal brokerage purchase calls and widespread institutional possession.
Shah encourages large considering—however anchors it in numbers. He talks not in share factors however in multiples. “For those who don’t assume large enough, you don’t get there,” he says. The ambition is unapologetically daring: to turn out to be the fastest-growing SUV model globally and to rank among the many world’s 50 most admired firms.
As he turns 56 right now (December 26), Shah has a lot to have a good time. In a remarkably brief span, he has pulled Mahindra out of a strategic rut, exited just about all loss-making companies, cleaned up the steadiness sheet and delivered a debt-free group prepared for its subsequent leap.
Fittingly, Anish—which might imply supreme, final or unrivalled—now leads a Mahindra that, in its personal means, feels nearer than ever to residing as much as the title.
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