The blue long-sleeved shirt with the Tube Investments of India logo on the pocket goes well with Vellayan Subbiah. His room is simple and the Mac on the table gets a break while BT has a meeting with him. His cell phone is charging in another corner. A replica of the FIFA World Cup.
It’s Chennai, and summer is all about making its presence felt. No shoes are allowed in the room, and we sit cross-legged on the floor. Subbiah is a fourth-generation member of the iconic Southern Group founded in 1900, and oversees three of the group’s 10 listed companies – Tube Investments of India, CG Power & Industrial Solutions, and Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company.
Started by Dewan Bahadur AM Murugappa Chettiar with a foray into financial lending and banking, by the end of 2025, the Murugappa Group had a turnover of US$11 billion and net profit of US$1 billion, with a presence in agriculture, engineering and financial services sectors. Subbiah carries this legacy with alacrity as he leads the diverse companies under his charge with quiet efficiency and takes them to the next stage of growth.
Through his forays into fields such as semiconductors and clean mobility, Subbiah resonates with what he calls national themes. “It is very important for leading companies to be aligned with the national agenda,” he says. “This is what will make things like semiconductors and new technology spaces successful.” Combine that with the comprehensive solution coming from industry and a lot can happen. “It’s part of the shift that I think is starting to happen as we do today.”
Sobia cites the examples of Japan, South Korea and China, where similar alignment of corporate and national interests has helped those countries grow at a rapid pace. In fact, this broad understanding is central to Subbiah’s thinking, having had the benefit of studying in two different parts of the world – he earned a degree in civil engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Madras before heading to the University of Michigan in the US for an MBA.
Subbiah brings a certain amount of strength and focus to the table, says Vallabh Bhanshali, co-founder and chairman of Enam Group. He feels a lot of it has to do with upbringing, especially given the legacy of his father, the former CEO of the group. “He was a tall leader in business and some of the governing principles were set by him. He brought deep insights into governance.” Bhanshali, who knows the family well, describes Sobia as “very value-conscious” and says his first stint consulting for major firm McKinsey enhanced his skills.
One of Subbiah’s biggest accomplishments was purchasing and converting electrical equipment manufacturer CG Power and Industrial Solutions. The company was involved in a $2,435 bank fraud case that came to light in 2019. It was acquired in 2020 for Rs 700 crore.
l’affaire CG Power is one of the most notable examples of corporate revival in recent Indian business history, says Sujata Rai, Chairman of Thomas Schmidheney and Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Practice at Indian Business School. “When it was acquired by TI in 2020, the company was carrying over Rs 2,100 crore of debt, hit a serious fraud case and had lost the trust of almost everyone associated with it. It was a wreck,” he says.
Subbiah brought in new management. “By 2022, it was debt-free, and today it has a real scope of ambitions that extends to semiconductors,” Ray adds. “The lesson that Velayan taught us is that transformations are actually about restoring confidence.”
Bhanshali says Sobia showcased his skill set during the CG Power acquisition. “It was a risky decision and his senior team was handling the legal and accounting issues. He was fully responsible for the business side, appointing the right people and asking all the relevant questions,” he points out. Subiah, in his opinion, has a logical approach to any problem. “It’s all about the math that brings value. He wears his brilliance lightly and those who mean business love him.”
For Ray, the biggest challenge is changing the identity of Transparency International. “It involves convincing everyone – employees, investors, customers and partners – to abandon the story they are comfortable with and believe in a new one,” he says. “A business once known for bicycles and steel tubes is now a trusted platform for advanced engineering and manufacturing.”
TI has established a subsidiary, TI Clean Mobility, which operates the Montra Electric brand, and launched three-wheelers (last-mile mobility), tractors, SCVs and HCVs. “Transparency International is looking at new age sectors,” says Bhanshali. “Here again, Vellayan has done his calculations and will not bow to popular perception.”
Y Rama Rao, senior managing director and CEO of Chennai-based financial services firm Spark Capital, says Subbiah is a new-age entrepreneur but still embodies the group’s values. Rao first noticed him in 2012, when Cholamandalam was going through a rough patch. “Chennai is home to some big names in financial services, but Velayan was different. He spoke a different language, understood technology, and was very ambitious. In many ways, he was a breath of fresh air.”
There is perhaps no better measure to evaluate Soppiah’s management of Cholamandalam than the fact that it now employs 65,000 people, down from 1,500 when he took over. “Cholamandalam, which has emerged as one of India’s most respected NBFCs, does not get as much attention as CG Power,” says Roy. Even when NBFCs faltered due to asset quality or fell into the trap of liquidity mismatches, Cholamandalam “maintained a strong credit culture, while diversifying its product portfolio.”
This is due to the deep focus that Sobia brings. In early 2018, he went on a 1,500-kilometre road trip in a 14-tonne truck, accompanied only by the driver and a cleaner. This is because a large portion of Cholamandalam’s loans go to the trucking industry and the trip was a good way to understand the borrowers. The fitness freak did some yoga in the car too.
Patience and perseverance shine through in conversation with Sobia. He often talks about companies that last for years. “Look at Transparency International, it’s been around for 75 years. It’s not really that old and we should think it’s been around for 200 to 250 years,” he declared. Institutions evolve and there is no end to this process. “If you don’t evolve, everything will end, both at the company level and at the individual level.” This is a philosophy he understands well and practices very effectively.
@krishnagopalan
