Sandvik Asia, the Indian arm of the Swedish mining & construction company Sandvik Smith AB, has appointed Parag Satpute as the new country manager for India with immediate effect. He replaces Ajay Sambrani, who quit the firm.
An MBA from Warwick Business School, UK with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pune University, Satpute has held several leadership positions within Sandvik Materials Technology, including head of product area wire and heating technology and regional sales; he has also been marketing manager for product area strip at EMEA as well as global sales and marketing manager for die-cutting.
Previously, he was general manager for Sandvik Saxon and before this, held a number of positions within Sandvik Asia.
"India is an important country and part of Sandvik’s emerging market strategy. Parag will continue to develop and accelerate our growth plans in the Indian market," said Olof Faxander, Sandvik Group's president and CEO.
With its country headquarters at Pune, Sandvik has set up five manufacturing units in India which are located at Pune, Mehsana, Hosur, Hyderabad and Chiplun.
Sandvik is now on its next phase of growth in India and is looking to ramp up its production and market penetration in the country. It has recently acquired 50 acres of land to set up a multi-nodal manufacturing facility at Chakan Industrial Area, which is part of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) Industrial Park, near Pune.
Recently, Sandvik also announced the setting up of a group R&D centre at Pune. In the next four years, Sandvik plans to ramp up the R&D team to a group of 90-100 engineers and scientists.
Sandvik started its operations in Pune in 1960, becoming the group's maiden venture in the Asian continent. India is one of the few countries where all of Sandvik’s units have a presence including Sandvik Mining, Sandvik Machining Solutions, Sandvik Materials Technology, Sandvik Construction and Sandvik Venture.
Sandvik is a global industrial group with products like tools for metal cutting, equipment and tools for the mining and construction industries, stainless materials, special alloys, metallic and ceramic resistance materials as well as process systems. In 2013 the group had about 47,000 employees across 130 countries.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
