Mahindra Names Aman Malik as National Sales Head, Dinesh Kurup to Lead Planning

Mahindra did not simply replace Baneswar Banerjee. It took his job and turned it into two.

Banerjee, who led sales for Mahindra's automotive division, has moved to the group's financial services arm. Instead of appointing one person into his seat, the company has restructured the function itself: field execution goes to one person, planning and support goes to another.

Aman Malik takes charge as Senior General Manager and National Sales Head for the automotive division. Dinesh Kurup steps in as Senior General Manager to head sales planning and support. Both report to Pavan Kumar, Senior Vice President for Sales, Customer Care, and Customer Experience.

Why One Role Became Two

The split is deliberate. Running a national sales operation well requires two very different skill sets that rarely sit comfortably in a single job description.

One person needs to be permanently outward-facing: managing zonal heads, driving dealer execution, and staying close to retail numbers on the ground. That role goes to Malik.

The other needs to be systems-oriented: planning forward volumes, managing logistics, aligning channel finance, and making sure the backend supports what the field is trying to do. That role goes to Kurup, who will bring planning, logistics, and channel finance under a defined structure.

Separating these two functions removes a common failure point where planning decisions get deprioritised when a sales head is under pressure to hit monthly numbers.

Aman Malik Brings a Farm-Division Track Record Into Mahindra

Malik is a 25-year Mahindra veteran. Most of that time was spent in the farm division, which is a very different commercial environment from passenger vehicles or SCVs (Small Commercial Vehicles). Farm equipment sales are seasonal, geographically concentrated, and deeply tied to rural credit cycles.

Managing that successfully over two decades, most recently as a Zonal Head delivering revenue growth and record volumes, suggests Malik understands ground-level dealer dynamics and rural market execution in a way that a career metro-market person would not.

That background matters for Mahindra specifically. The company sells its SUVs and Bolero pickups across a wide range of markets, from Tier 1 cities to deep rural belts. Someone who has spent 20 years in tractor country knows those networks.

Pavan Kumar's Expanding Role at the Centre

Both appointments sit under Pavan Kumar, who has been building out a more integrated commercial function at Mahindra. Under his watch, the company has already consolidated fleet and new business development, and business analytics, into a single framework.

Adding Malik and Kurup to this structure brings field sales and planning under the same reporting umbrella as customer care and experience. The logic is that faster feedback from the ground should improve planning decisions, and better planning should reduce the firefighting that field teams usually deal with at month end.

The MEAL Connection and Charu Gulati

The restructuring also touches Mahindra Electric Automobile Limited. Deepak Sinha, who leads MEAL's national sales, will now have a dotted-line reporting relationship to Pavan Kumar while continuing to work with Reeti Nageshri on business operations and strategy. This pulls the EV business closer to the core sales ecosystem without dismantling its independent structure.

Separately, Charu Gulati, who joined Mahindra from Tata Motors in December 2025, is already embedded in the central sales and customer function. Her background adds another layer to the customer experience side of the reorganisation.