Venu Srinivasan (Tamil: வேணு ஸ்ரீனிவாசன்) is an Indian industrialist; the Chairman and Managing Director of Sundaram Clayton Ltd and TVS Motor Company, the third largest two wheeler manufacturer in India. He also served as the President of Confederation of Indian Industry for the year 2009-10. He is the Honorary Consul General of Republic of Korea and a Member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry. He was also President of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
Career
Venu Srinivasan is the grandson of the TVS Group's founder, T. V. Sundaram Iyengar.[2] After graduating as an engineer from the University of Madras, he completed a Master's Degree in Management from Purdue University in the USA.
He became the Managing Director of Sundaram Clayton Ltd. in May 1979. He went on to become Chairman of TVS Motor Company in July 2002.
In the late 1980’s, Srinivasan scripted a turnaround of the company, which was then mired in labour trouble and was sinking into the red. Srinivasan dealt with the situation sternly and shut the factory down for three months, forcing the unions to relent. He then re-structured operations by upgrading plant machinery, investing in new technologies and implementing Total Quality Management practices. He also brought in Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya of the University of Warwick as a consultant to provide guidance.In 2001, TVS Motor Company split with Suzuki and started manufacturing on its own. TVS Motor Company re-entered contention by successfully launching Victor, India’s first indigenously built four stroke motorcycle. The slew of launches that followed propelled TVS Motor Company to become the third largest two wheeler manufacturer in India.
Srinivasan later brought in Professor Yasutoshi Washio of Japan, a Deming Application Prize Winner and globally renowned expert in Total Quality Management and Japanese Quality Management Guru Prof Yoshikazu Tsuda as mentors to strengthen the TQM processes within the company.
Under his leadership as the Managing Director, Sundaram Clayton's brakes division won the Deming Prize in 1998 for having "achieved distinctive performance improvements through application of company-wide quality control". In 2004, TVS Motor Company also won the Deming Prize, becoming the first two-wheeler company in the world to do so.
Srinivasan holds several other positions:
Director, Lucas-TVS
Director, T V Sundram Iyengar & Sons Limited
Director, Southern Roadways Limited
Director, Sundram Fasteners Limited
Director, Cummins India Limited
Director, TATA Coffee Limited
Director, Oriental Hotels Limited
Director, TVS Energy Limited
Chairman, TVS Credit Services Limited
Chairman, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Government of India
Vice Chairman, State Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, Government of Tamil Nadu, India,
Past President, Confederation of Indian Industry, Delhi.
Past President, Automotive Research Association of India.
Past President, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
