Ravi Kushan new Managing Partner of Roland Berger in India
Roland Berger has a new Managing Partner in India: Ravindra Parankushan (Ravi Kushan). The Mumbai based partner succeeds Wilfried Aulbur, who headed the management consultancy for seven years, and has now moved to the US to take on a senior role in the firm’s Automotive practice.
With four offices in the country, Roland Berger is one of the larger strategy consulting firms in India, competing against the likes of McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company and Strategy&. The German-origin consultancy first launched its Indian operations in 2012. To lead the venture, the firm brought in Wilfried Aulbur, formerly the CEO of Mercedes-Benz in India, on board as Managing Partner.
Seven years down the line, Aulbur, who is married to an Indian, has left the consultancy in solid shape. The firm’s offices in Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune serve both large multinationals as well as local organisations, and have built a strong track record in the automotive, industrial, aerospace and defense sectors.
Building scale in India
“Roland Berger has had a great start in India and I look forward to building scale for the firm,” said Ravindra Parankushan, who assumed responsibilities at the start of this month. Kushan brings with him decades of experience in banking and management consulting. He joined from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where he worked for thirteen years, most recently as CEO of the Indian operations. Throughout his career at the bank, one of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banking institutions, he held a variety of roles, including being part of the team that established the bank's presence in India from scratch.
Prior to that, Kushan was a Partner at A.T. Kearney. His eleven year career at the US-origin management consulting firm saw him work across four offices: US, Australia, Singapore and India, supporting clients with strategy development, operational improvement, organisation development, risk management and technology, among a range of other services. Latterly, he was responsible for the firms’ Indian operations and was part of the leadership group that built the firm's financial services practice in the Asia-Pacific region. Kushan also worked for Bain & Company’s Australian outfit, where he was involved with strategy projects for leading banks and insurance companies in Australia and New Zealand.
In his new role, Kushan has been tasked with taking Roland Berger into the new phase of its growth. Besides consolidating its presence in the areas in which the firm is already active, he will leverage his experience gained at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to build a financial services practice.
The expansion drift comes at a time when India’s banking industry is facing a sweep of change on the back of several economic reforms introduced by Prime Minister Modi. Some, including Bain & Company's India Chairman Srivatsan Rajan, however, feel that the reform agenda should be bolder, as not doing so risks holding up the economy.
Besides commercial capital Mumbai, where Kushan is based, Pune will remain a key hub for Roland Berger in India under the new leader. The city has the country's largest concentration of German expats, with over 180 German companies based in Pune’s industrial belt, as well as a very active Indo-German Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile, Aulbur has relocated to the US to join Roland Berger’s North American Automotive practice. He admitted, however, to expect to miss the country, stating “I felt totally at home here, right from the beginning. I have never considered myself to be an expatriate in India. For all purposes, I am equally German, American and Indian.”
Ravi Kushan holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Mumbai and a master’s in business administration from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in the US.
In an interview in November last year, McKinsey’s new Managing Partner Gautam Kumra (appointed in January 2017) said that the firm had booked double digit growth in India in 2017. BCG India is led by Neeraj Aggarwal – he was named Managing Director of BCG India in September 2015.
