Cosworth

Kayzad Kasad

As Cosworth continues with its expansion strategy, India is set to play a key role in the engineering company's future. The leading UK-headquartered engineering brand was largely unknown in India prior to 2009, when Kayzad Kasad was appointed as India Director for Cosworth. He was tasked with introducing and selling Cosworth's engineering products to India, recruiting six team members to help introduce the new brand to India.

Initially, automotive and performance aftermarket were to be the main focus of Cosworth's Indian operations. Kasad said currently in India, performance vehicles are few and far between, largely because the road infrastructure doesn't provide conditions suitable for powerful cars. But it's clear that that is all about to change. According to Kasad, the debut of Formula One in India willl boost India's general interest in sports cars, contributing to substantial growth for Cosworth's performance market in India.

Kasad is a mechanical engineer, with an MBA in marketing and finance. He began his career in manufacturing, which he credits for his production and talent management skills. Kasad bought to Cosworth more than 15 years experience of business planning and development, manufacturing and engineering design. Kasad was attracted to his role at Cosworth because of the challenges it would offer with the different sectors of the business. He said the company's ambitions to diversify into aerospace, defence and energy all created opportunities in India.

"In addition to the opportunity presented by Formula 1, there are other business streams for Cosworth India including defence, energy and automotive. Our challenge in India is to build the brand and demonstrate the engineering edge that Cosworth can provide to its customers."

Kasad said he sees the major opportunities for Cosworth in the automotive and defence markets in India. He said the defence sector in India was expected to develop rapidly in the next five to ten years which would create some good business opportunities for Cosworth.