Lumax-DK Jain group has appointed Raju B Ketkale as the Executive Director – Manufacturing & Corporate Planning’ effective October 3, 2023. He will be based at the corporate headquarters in Gurugram and closely work with the leadership team.
The company says Ketkale is a senior industry veteran and comes with over 3 decades of experience having held various strategic positions in his career at Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKML). In his last role, he was the Executive Vice President – Manufacturing and Board Member at TKML.
He has successfully led massive structural reforms in manufacturing, technical function and people development to achieve cost competitiveness & manufacturing excellence, establishing a leadership pipeline ready to face challenges of new technology, electrification, carbon neutrality and digitisation. He was also working very closely with Suzuki, Japan & Maruti Suzuki India as the project leader for Toyota-Suzuki alliance and is said to have successfully launched the first hybrid vehicle project for India and export markets.
Deepak Jain, Chairman, Lumax-DK Jain Group said, “We are delighted to welcome Ketkale as our Executive Director. His extensive industry and strategic experience, combined with a deep passion for fostering organisational transformation, will help Lumax to advance to newer heights, including building a robust pipeline of leaders from within to make the organisation future ready.,
Anmol Jain, Group MD, Lumax-DK Jain group added, “We had embarked on our visioning journey to create a ‘One Lumax, One Manufacturing System’. This new role has emerged out of this need and will support our core, which is and will remain manufacturing. We all know manufacturing entails much more than just production operations, it encompasses the whole ecosystem that affects the culture and impacts day-to-day work management. Given Ketkale’s rich experience and vast knowledge, we are very excited to working together on this business reformation journey”.
Ketkale, holds a BE Mechanical and a Masters in Machine Design from Bangalore University. On behalf of TKML, he has been the recipient of Energy compact award for achieving RE100 in May 2022 from MNRE, Govt of India. In his earlier role, he has also promoted sustainable operations in TKML and across value chain, achieving plant zero CO2 (RE 100) in Year 2021. It is the No.1 plant recognised by Toyota globally and he has successfully established biodiversity eco-park on a construction dump. For this initiative, he is also the recipient of the ‘MOEF & CII ITC Excellence’ award for Bio diversity park on behalf of TKML in March 2023.
