Exclusive: Tata Motors brings TCS veteran Rajesh Kannan to drive its future AI and ML initiatives

In a bid to capitalise on the growing role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), Tata Motors, the country’s largest automobile company by revenues, has brought on board Rajesh Kannan as the President and Chief Digital and Information Officer, beginning August 1, 2023, from the sister company Tata Consultancy Services.

The same was announced to the employees by Chairman N Chandrasekaran, earlier in the month.

The induction of Kannan is aimed at leveraging various digital tools right from developing systems processes, products, and technologies, said people in the know, adding that the fact Tata Motors has created this special role in its top leadership deck underlines the criticality of the same.

Kannan will be joining the Executive Committee or Ex-Com as it is termed internally –which defines the company’s long-term strategies and roadmap. He will be based out of Mumbai.

The chairman told employees that the company’s efforts to transform into a customer centric future ready and agile business is delivering promising results, and he aims to accelerate this further by leveraging the multiple digital technology changes that are currently underway. This includes Industry 4.0, AI/ML, connected vehicles, natural language processing, generative text, and many more, to deliver cutting-edge customer and employee experience. 

A Tata Motors’ spokesperson confirmed the development to Autocar Professional and said that the company is fast transforming into a more customer centric, future ready and agile organisation and Rajesh Kannan’s onboarding as President and Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO) will help accelerate the adoption of next-gen digital technologies across all its businesses, functions and operations.

“He will provide thought leadership, build the requisite capabilities, and enhance, integrate, and execute the digital strategy for the company. Rajesh’s successful track record, plus rich experience of working with multiple future  ready technologies as well as delivering transformative, end-to-end digital and IT engagements for global organisations in various sectors will be an asset to Tata Motors,” added the spokesperson. 

As a logical next step, the chairman added that the company will also bring together the teams in information technology, information and analytics, digital product development and engineering IT under his leadership to unlock seamless work transition in this fast-moving space.

This critical hiring happens at a time when the company is in the midst of its biggest capital expenditure and product portfolio expansion plan under all three business units – commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles and electric vehicles.

With each of these units operating as an independent profit centre, there are significant back-end synergies that can be drawn upon to deliver an agile and robust organisation.

Kannan has over twenty-eight years of experience of delivering end to end digital and IT engagements for global organisations across multiple sectors and industries including Retail, consumer products, media and advertising, banking, insurance and financial services.

Prior to joining Tata Motors, Kannan served at Tata Consultancy Services as the Vice President and Business Unit head of Service Design and Transformation.

A sports buff who keenly follows cricket, Formula 1 and NFL, Kannan secured his BTEC in Chemical Engineering from Anna University, Chennai and his Masters in Computer Aided Design in Chemical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.