Venu, Mallika Srinivasan Lead By Example, Hand Over Baton To Their Children

A couple of significant developments have taken place in the Chennai corporate world. One, Lakshmi Venu has been elevated as Vice-Chairman of TAFE (Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd), one of the largest tractor makers in the world. She had been a Director of TAFE, the flagship company of the Amalgamation group. TAFE has been driven by Mallika Srinivasan, mother of Lakshmi Venu. Two, Sudarshan Venu has been appointed the CMD of TVS Motor Company, one of the largest two-wheeler producers in the country. Venu Srinivasan, father of Sudarshan, continues to be the Chairman Emeritus of TVS Motor. Sudarshan and Lakshmi are children of Venu and Mallika Srinivasan. The elevation of Sudarshan and Lakshmi in TVS Motor and TAFE respectively is significant for the way the young ones in the family are guided up the ladder. More importantly, this sort of set the template for succession planning for many in the family business. The erstwhile TVS conglomerate – which comprised four families — saw formal legal separation a few years ago which allowed each family within the TVS conglomerate to go their separate ways. This, in fact, has seen each one of them chalking out independent business strategies. The family arrangement in the erstwhile TVS group took over two decades to arrive at after two families went to court to settle a dispute over the floatation of a competing venture in early ’90s. If grapevine has to go by, the Murugappa group (which like the TVS family comprises many wings), too, is working hard to arrive at a similar family arrangement. Reading against these backdrops, the elevation of Sudarshan and Lakshmi is remarkable for the calibrated manner in which it was done.