As we continue to celebrate our leaders at Mahindra with our #RiseToLead series, we're delighted to feature Pavan Kumar, (Head – Central Planning & SCM, Auto Sector). When it comes to accepting challenges, Pavan Kumar has always risen to the occasion. His story and leadership abilities gleam with inspiration.

“When I joined Mahindra in Aug 2005, little did I know that what lay ahead was an incredible Rise journey. M&M is truly a great place to work. Its culture always lets me explore and experiment. I’ve been shaped by strong leaders in my 20-year career that helped me pursue exciting roles in Strategy, Sales, Purchase and Supply Chain. They provided me with a sense of vision and purpose and taught me to set the agenda, prioritize, manage, lead, delegate and inspire.

As head of Supply Chain and Production Planning for Auto Sector, I lead an incredible team that has been working relentlessly to ramp-up volumes post covid. I intend to create a resilient supply chain that will help realize our company’s long term aspirational volumes. I am innately curious, accept challenges, adapt quickly, and wield influence that drives positive change.

I believe that people are connected by a lot of similarities and divided by fewer differences. This has helped me to accept and address conflict. The urge to have an impact on people, profit and the planet is the motivation for my leadership. The idea of having an impact makes me dive deeper and I believe my best work is yet to arise. While what we achieve is important, how we touch others’ lives is more important for long term success and fulfilment.

My message to future leaders is to be passionate but more importantly be compassionate. I feel glad to be a part of the Mahindra Future Shapers cohort for the tremendous learning, networking, and growth opportunities it offers.”