It’s official. Pratap Bose has joined the Mahindra Group. The automaker has appointed Bose as the executive vice president and chief design officer to lead its newly formed Global Design organisation.

He will operate out of UK where the company will soon have its new Mahindra Advanced Design Centre (MADE) up and ready next month. Autocar India had, on May 6, first reported on Bose being all set to join M&M.

In this role, Bose will be responsible for both, MADE and MIDS (Mahindra India Design Studio) and will oversee design of all key business segments such as authentic SUVs, including Born Electric Vehicle (BEV), LCV products (under 3.5 tonne), Last Mile Mobility (LMM), large CVs, Peugeot Scooters (France), and tractors and farm machines. Pratap will join on June 24, 2021, and will report to Rajesh Jejurikar, executive director, Auto and Farm Sectors, M&M.

Pratap is an alumnus of Royal College of Art, London and National Institute of Design, India. He has over 20 years of rich global automotive design experience. His last assignment has been with Tata Motors in UK where he was the vice president of Global Design and played a big role in contributing to a makeover for its passenger cars and SUVs. His competencies will come in handy at M&M, which is also rebooting its priorities under a new leadership team. Bose had earlier worked in Piaggio, Italy, and Daimler Chrysler, Japan.

Speaking about the announcement, Rajesh Jejurikar, executive director, Auto and Farm Sectors, Mahindra & Mahindra, said, “We are at an inflection point in our auto and farm sectors growth journey as we accelerate our transformative initiatives. Our robust pipeline of 23 new products that will be launched in the next five years would bring our design and advanced engineering capability across automotive, farm equipment and two-wheelers to the fore. Having Pratap on the team will strengthen our design capability, enhance our products and widen our customer base. We are very excited to welcome him on board and look forward to writing a new chapter in Mahindra’s rich product legacy.”

Ramkripa Ananthan to leave Mahindra 

Meanwhile, in another development, it is learnt from an internal company memo that Ramkripa Ananthan, M&M’s head of design, has called it a day at the automaker after a stint of nearly 24 years. She was part of key projects like the XUV500, XUV300 and the Marazzo.