Tata Motors names Guenter Butschek as new CEO

Guenter Butschek is an auto industry veteran, having spent 25 years at Daimler. He was COO of Airbus in his last assignment

Tata Motors, the automotive arm of the salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, named Guenter Butschek as its new managing director and chief executive officer on Monday.

The top job at the company has been lying vacant since the demise of its erstwhile CEO Karl Slym in January 2014, though the company’s passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles divisions have been led by their respective business heads. Butschek will assume his new role at Tata Motors on February 15 and his appointment is for a period of five years to begin with.

In his last assignment, Butschek served as the chief operating officer and member of the group executive committee at aircraft manufacturer Airbus. Butschek had resigned from this post in December 2014.  

Butscheck, 55, is an auto industry veteran, having spent over 25 years at the German automobile group Daimler AG. In his last role at Daimler, Butschek was the president and chief executive of Beijing Benz Automotive Co. Ltd.

He graduated with a diploma in business administration and economics from the University of Cooperative Education, Stuttgart.

“Tata Motors is going through an exciting, yet challenging, phase and Mr. Butschek’s appointment comes at an opportune moment,” Tata Motors and Tata Group chairman Cyrus P Mistry said in a statement. “He [Butschek] brings with him a rich global experience of growing organisations and developing new markets. I am confident that Mr. Butschek’s ability to lead high-performance teams will enable our company to achieve sustainable and profitable growth.”   

A key priority for the new CEO will be to ensure that Tata Motors grows its passenger car volumes in India—which have declined over a period of time—on a sustainable basis and successfully oversee the slew of new car launches that the company plans till 2020.