Interview With A Tyre Leader_PK Mohamed_Apollo Tyres

| LEADER - INTERVIEW |
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career. This reinforced my belief in the
benefits of continuing education in the
fieldof one’s interest, through reading,
interaction, active participation in the
technical discussion, experimentation of
one’s ideas and analysis of their outcome.
Linking these observations with the
theories, is an important element of
learning which is essential for one’s
professional growth.
It is also important to acquire
qualification in the respective
professional field for better recognition.
The successful stint in Premier saw me
elevated to the position of the Manager -
Compounding & Laboratory Chemist.
It was time in 1976, when Apollo Tyres
was looking for a rubber technologist
with a qualification of LPRI (London) and
with compounding background to be
trained under their collaborator, General
Tire International Company (GTIC) in the
USA. A change seemed just right for me at
that stage to further my career growth
and also to support the financial needs of
my family which was particularly more
felt after my marriage.
I applied for the position on offer and got
selected. People around me and well
wishers like Dr. A.S.Nair, G.K.Pillai,
M.Jayashankar, I.Venugopal, and Dr. John
Jacob congratulated me because then
Apollo Tyres was considered to be a rising
star in the industry circles. And more for
the fact that it was managed by the
dynamic entrepreneur, Raunaq Singh.
“The products offered by our
collaborator were not meeting
the customer and market
requirements and hence tyres
started failing miserably.”
I joined Apollo with a lot of hope and went
to General Tires for extensive training in
the areas of rubber compounding, fabric
dipping, calendaring, and heat engineering.
I returned to India and started working
under William Stebins, a General Tyre
Compounding Specialist.
The Technology was then headed by Ceaser
Pereira. Even though every individual
department put in their best efforts, heart
and soul for the growth of the company, the
products offered by our collaborator were
not meeting the customer and market
requirements. Hence tyres started failing
miserably.
Apollo reached a situation where in all the
raw material suppliers refused to make
anymore supply of their products,
collaborator refused to provide further
technology and dealers stopped lifting our
tyres. During that time Raunaq Singh
installed a new management team under the
leadership of Onkar Singh Kanwar, the
present Chairman and Managing Director.
When he took over the company, there was
no credible management team and whoever
was available, was having a very low
morale.
Know A Leader - Rubber & Tyre Machinery World | JAN 2016