Ever since he was inducted into the Larsen & Toubro Board in October 2010, Mr Ravi Uppal was tipped to be Mr A. M. Naik's successor for the top job. To that extent, Friday's announcement of Mr K. Venkataramanan as the new Managing Director & CEO came as a surprise within industry circles.

In all fairness, there was never even the remotest of hints from L&T that Mr Uppal, Managing Director of L&T Power and earlier with ABB, would take over from Mr Naik. However, it was largely presumed that for a company which was looking for a younger successor with the right skills, he seemed the best suited for the mantle.

Mr Uppal is barely 60, which makes him seven years younger than Mr Venkataramanan and a good decade vis-à-vis Mr Naik. He may well be in the running three years down the line, but a lot could happen in the interim.

Mr Naik, of course, will continue at L&T as Executive Chairman for the next five years where he will “focus on completing the portfolio restructuring, mentoring and developing the leadership team and future leaders.” He will be 75 at the end of this tenure and will have spent over 50 years in the company he is fiercely passionate about.

Fears of slowdown

Mr Venkataramanan takes over at a time when the economy is not in the best of shape, and there are fears of a slowdown hitting the capital goods business. L&T is not too upbeat about GDP growth in 2012-13 exceeding seven per cent.

An L&T veteran (he has been with the company since 1969), Mr Venkataramanan is no stranger to business cycles. He is expected to prioritise growth of the international business where Brazil, Russia and Australia have been identified as key growth drivers.

In the years gone by, the race for the top job at L&T was generally accompanied by high drama. Way back in 1999, Mr Naik was clearly the favourite to take over from his predecessor, Mr S. D. Kulkarni. However, the entire exercise took a long while, with the eight-member panel undecided on the candidate. For good measure, a Swiss consulting form was roped in which worked alongside McKinsey to find a successor.

Mr Naik finally took charge in the last week of April 1999 and has played a big role in steering L&T to the Rs 55,000-crore conglomerate it is today. Along the way, there could have been some personal disappointments like the Satyam takeover where L&T was seen as the top contender, but lost out to Mahindra & Mahindra.

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