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 Press Coverage |
Bullet Power
Geetika Sasan Bhandari
Times News Network
He’s nearly 28, says Siddhartha Lal, chief executive, Royal En-field Motors (REM), but in fact looks a couple of years younger.
But don’t let the age factor fool you; glance through his profile and you’ll see a man who’s not only studied eco-nomics but also automotive engineer-ing.
That, coupled with his love for bikes, and the fact that he prefers his Bullet to his BMW, makes Sidhhartha the right man for the job.
No wonder he’s never had prob-lems at work, considering nearly half his top brass is probably double his age! “I’d actually worked at REM earli-er and then rejoined the company as head of marketing and product devel-opment before taking over as chief ex-ecutive this March.”
An alumnus of Doon School, Dehradun and St Stephen’s College, Delhi, Siddhartha majored in econom-ics and then went to work at MAN Nutzfanrzeugen, a German commer-cial vehicle manufacturer.
He then had a two-month stint at Fritz Egli, the renowned motorcycle specialist in Switzerland and later joined Royal En-field’s importer in the UK. Lal then came back to India and worked with Royal Enfield in Chennai in the materi-als and product departments for a year. In 1996, he decided to pursue automotive engineering (“having be-come excited enough about it”), and completed a post-graduation diploma course in automotive engineering from Cranfield University. He then ob-tained an MSc in the same from the University of Leeds in 1998.
In 1998, Sidhhartha joined the Eich-er group (owned largely by his family), which had bought over REM in 1994, and worked in the marketing division of Eicher Tractors for over a year.
He returned to REM in the beginning of 2001, and is here to stay. A lot to show for his 28 years, wouldn’t you say? And as you’ve probably gathered, work is all he thinks about right now with the imme-diate goal being to turnaround the company as it was in a loss-making situation last year.
It doesn’t come as a surprise then when Lal says he loves biking and prefers his cutom-built Bullet to his BMW F650. “I’ve extensively toured India on my Bullet and also Europe,” he says. As for cars, he drives a lowly Esteem. Dogs are his other passion, he has four boxers, two in hometown Delhi and two in Chennai where he now lives. “It’s a great city and on Sun-days, I love my water sports in Chen-nai.” The routine on other days would-n’t allow it for office starts at 8:30 a.m. and that’s an hour’s drive. There is ob-viously no closing time.