'Entrepreneur Behind The Changing Trends In Farming'

The Chairperson of farm equipment and tractors manufacturer, Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd (TAFE), Mallika Srinivasan is widely recognized as tractor queen for leading her company to success in a male-dominated industry.

When Srinivasan joined TAFE, one of the Amalgamations Group`s high-profile companies, in 1985, its annual turnover was a mere Rs86 crore, which jumped up to a whopping Rs5,800 crore by 2010/11. Currently, TAFE is the second biggest tractor manufacturing company in India after Mahindra Mahindra Tractors and the third biggest in the world, after Mahindra and the US-based John Deere. While the company manufactured around 4,000 tractors in a year at the time she joined, it now brings forth around 120,000, with exports to more than 77 countries.

Born in 1959 to industrialist A Sivasailam in Chennai, Srinivasan earned her bachelors degree from University of Madras, Chennai. Her father wanted her to study literature, but she dreamed of managing her family business. Therefore, she moved to the US and studied at the prestigious Wharton School in Pennsylvania. After earning her MBA degree from the institute, she came back to Chennai and joined TAFE as General Manager, Planning and Coordination.


There was a time in TAFE history when government dictated the number of tractors it could manufacture in a year and the number was 7,000. Today, under the supervision of Srinivasan, the company manufactures that many in less than a month. The company has 25 percent of market share in the industry. Srinivasan has led the company to new heights and helped it carve a niche for itself as a prominent tractor manufacturer in the competitive marketplace.

Over the years, Srinivasan worked extremely hard to expand the company`s operations. Other than tractors, the company has also ventured into different businesses including automotive batteries gears, engineering plastics, hydraulic pumps, panel instruments, farm implements and others. The company has distinguished itself in offering not only robustly engineered tractors, but also a range of qualitative products with low cost of operations. Currently, the company has a network of more than 1,000 distribution centers across the nation, wherein tractors from its three major brands TAFE, MF and Eicher are available.

In a span of only 20 years, Srinivasan transformed TAFE from an ordinary farm equipment company into a hi-tech company and earned the trust of its customers. Besides that, she has also taken crucial steps to expand the range of Eicher products in the market as per the increasing demands of the market.

Besides managing TAFE, Srinivasan is also on the Board of AGCO Corporation - USA and Tata Steel Limited, plus Independent Board Member and Non-Executive Director of Tata Global Beverages Limited. In addition to that, she is also a member of the Governing Board at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad as well as the Bharathidasan Institute of Management in Trichy, Chennai.

Srinivasan has been conferred with many awards and honors throughout her career including 2013 Business Thought Leader of the Year 2012 by NDTV Profit Business Leadership Awards, India’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business 2012 (Ranked 2nd) in Fortune magazine, Forbes India Leadership Awards 2012 Women Leader of the Year, Business Woman of the year Award 2005-06 by The Economic Times, First Business Woman of the Year award for India (1999) by BBC and many others.