Venkatrao S Sohoni, former managing director of Pharmacia India, is set to take over as managing director of Rallis India, the Tata group's agrochemical company.
Sohoni replaces Rajeev Dubey, who resigned for personal reasions. It is understood that Dubey is seeking a re-location within the Tata group. Dubey, however, declined to comment.
The Rallis board, which met today, decided to appoint Sohoni as MD with effect from August 11. Sohoni was inducted on the board of Rallis in March this year as additional director along with Prasad Menon, managing director of Tata Chemicals and Homi Khusrokhan, managing director of Tata Tea.
As per the recast, R Gopalakrishnan took over as chairman of Rallis India from Freddie A Mehta, who was appointed as chairman after being a director for 22 years, in December 1994. Tata stalwart JK Setna, director also resigned from the board this year.
Until Sohoni takes charge, the management team will report to chairman R Gopalakrishnan, Rallis said in a statement. Gopalakrishnan has been closely involved with Rallis' day-to-day operations since 2000 when Vijay Rai, who had been at the helm of Rallis for 15 years, quit. Rallis was without a chief for almost a year till Dubey was brought in from Tata Metaliks to head the company.
Sohoni has over 39 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and agro-chemicals industries and was also the managing director of Hindustan Ciba Geigy and vice-president of Sandoz Crop protection division.
Rallis has reported a pre-tax loss of Rs 81 crore on a turnover of Rs 885 crore during the year ended March 31. 2003. Dubey was brought in to put Rallis back on the rails, but the company is yet to show signs of turnaround. The company's poor performance has been partly because of difficult market conditions.
