01 January, 2025 Leaders
Satish Pai was born in Bombay in 1961 into a middle-class family. The eldest of three sons, he spent his childhood in Delhi and Calcutta as well, always excelling in academics and fuelling his passion for sports, learning the importance of team work early on.
After schooling, Pai wanted to join the army and even passed the entry exam for the National Defence Academy. However, following the wishes of his mother, he applied and secured admission into IIT, Madras, instead–going on to become a mechanical engineer, and eventually, the Chief Executive Officer of Hindalco.
Long before Hindalco, and like many engineers before him, Satish Pai headed to the west after graduating from IIT. He was recruited by global oil and gas conglomerate Schlumberger where he worked for almost three decades, doing stints across the world–from Taiwan and Thailand to Beirut and France, from Oman and Russia to the UK and the US–before returning home to India in 2013 to join the Aditya Birla Group as CEO of Hindalco in Mumbai.
Pai credits his time at Schlumberger with several important life-changing opportunities–including meeting his wife Wanvimon in Thailand–and a role in HR that taught him the basics of recruiting, training and compensation, skills that he discovered were necessary if one had management aspirations.
All his collective experience was put to the test when he took charge of Hindalco’s aluminium business, at a time when the industry was undergoing a major crisis. In light of the recent coal scam, allocation of coal blocks to public and private enterprises had been cancelled. However, Pai navigated the company through this challenging time by coming up with a strategy in response to the environment. He recognised that brain power was India’s big advantage and so he pushed hard on downstream–engineering products and solutions–and eventually a thrust on value-added products.
Pai was also the reason Hindalco and the recently-acquired Novelis were combined to become one of the best international companies. He says, “I wanted it to be on the same stage as the other industry leaders and be respected for being the same level as them, not for being a good Indian aluminium and copper company.” A feat that he achieved by ensuring Hindalco’s processes, systems, working culture, safety and sustainability were operating at the top level. He also worked on a corporate cultural transformation, creating a management framework and bringing in new, young talent from outside the firm.
These days, Pai continues to make the most of opportunities on offer, positioning Hindalco as a downstream value-added player, even as it looks to ramp up its play in copper. He outlines green energy as a challenge that Hindalco will need to overcome and, like all other challenges the company has faced, one that he will steer it through. When he’s not running a strong ship, the 2024 winner of the BT-PwC India’s Best CEOs in the Super Large Companies category, unwinds by hitting the gym, playing badminton with his wife or strumming his guitar–a hobby that he’s returned to after four decades.
