Jindal Steel Names Gautam Malhotra CEO
Malhotra steps into a long-vacant CEO role as Jindal Steel battles weaker profit and rising cost pressure.
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[Image source: Chetan Jha/MITSMR India]
Jindal Steel Ltd, India’s third-largest private steel producer backed by billionaire Naveen Jindal, named Gautam Malhotra as chief executive officer, effective Tuesday, 28 October, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday.
The CEO post had been vacant for nearly five years, after former chief executive Sudhanshu Saraf left in 2020. The company instead relied on managing directors, most recently Bimlendra Jha, who joined in 2022 and exited in early 2024.
Malhotra joined Jindal Steel in May 2024 and has worked across mining, production, HR, logistics, technology, AI adoption and sales, according to the filing.
The company said he has focused on strengthening the commercial value chain, sharpening go-to-market strategy, supporting logistics and building out sales capability.
Before Jindal Steel, Malhotra founded FuelBuddy, a doorstep fuel delivery firm that now operates in five countries.
He has more than 19 years of operating and commercial experience and holds an MBA (Honours) from the University of Manchester’s business school, along with coursework in operations and strategy at Indiana University and IIM Ahmedabad.
He has an undergraduate degree in computer engineering from the University of Pune.
The leadership change was announced alongside the September-quarter earnings.
Consolidated net profit fell 26.2% year-on-year to ₹635.08 crore in the July–September quarter, down from ₹860.47 crore a year earlier, hurt in part by higher expenses. That was also sharply lower than the ₹1,495.97 crore profit reported in the June quarter of this financial year.
Revenue held up better. Total revenue from operations rose 4.21% to ₹11,685.88 crore in the quarter, compared with ₹11,213.31 crore in the same period last year. The company’s total revenue in the April–June quarter was about ₹12,294.48 crore.
Jindal Steel told investors that production and sales volumes eased sequentially, but exports as a share of sales improved to 10% in the September quarter from 7% in the June quarter.
The company also said value-added steel reached a record 73% of overall sales. Net debt at the end of the quarter was ₹14,156 crore, down from ₹14,400 crore as of 30 June.
