ON A CHILLY WINTER morning in February 2019, Arun Misra, an avid jogger who had just completed a two-hour run crisscrossing Udaipur, found the city of Rajasthan — famous for its lakes and home to what is today the world’s largest integrated zinc producer, Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) — to be a ‘nice place’.

Misra, a top executive in the raw materials division of Tata Steel at that time, was on his first visit to Udaipur to attend a one-day conference on minerals. Little did he know then that a few months later, in November the same year, he would shift to Udaipur to head HZL.

“I never thought I will come here, but when the Vedanta (the company that owns a majority stake in HZL) folks called me to lead HZL as CEO, I felt the firm had the pedigree [for me] to invest my time and professional skills,” says Misra. The switch was almost seamless — both Tata Steel and HZL dealt with critical minerals; both had a pre- and post-liberalisation phase (a pre-Ratan Tata and Ratan Tata phase for Tata Steel, and a PSU and post-Vendanta-acquisition phase for HZL), and both had systems and processes, established over decades, already in place.

However, it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. A global pandemic was waiting in the wings. Operations were about to get shut down, environment and safety concerns were to become paramount during lockdowns, and the future of supply chains and businesses in general, and the mining industry — considered to be ‘hazardous’ in nature — in particular, was uncertain. Besides, Misra had his own grand plans: he wanted HZL to produce more, create additional value for shareholders, and become a hallmark in responsible mining.

“When I came, HZL had a target of 1.2 million tonnes (MT) of annual production, but was producing some 750,000-850,000 MT. Secondly, I came in the middle of Covid-19 and nobody in the world knew when it will be over, what will be the shape of the industry, and how it will operate etc.,” Misra recalls. He also had a personal ambition of seeing HZL’s market cap surpass that of Tata Steel’s, since the former, despite having an Ebitda of more than 50% compared to Tata Steel’s 35%, was trailing in m-cap. “There was a perception that mining and metals companies don’t follow rules. I had to correct that too,” he says.

So, one of the first decisions Misra took as CEO was to set a SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) vision for 2025. “I rolled that out in 2020. We said after Covid, the most important thing in people’s minds will be clean air, so we have to concentrate on emission reduction. And because we are in Rajasthan, we need to have a vision for water consumption reduction; leave natural water for people to consume and use alternative supply. We wanted to touch people through CSR initiatives also,” says Misra. Five years later, about 30% of HZL’s power consumption is through renewable energy, and the company aims to take it to 60% by 2027. It eventually plans to shut down its thermal power plants and ensure the zinc or lead it produces emit much less. “Already we have a product called EcoZen, which has 75% lower carbon footprint than the industry average. We will see to it that 60-70% of our products can qualify as low-emission products by 2027… Today, we are the primary user of Udaipur’s sewage water treatment plant. We have built the plant, run it, and consume 80% of that water, instead of taking from lakes and freshwater resources. We have also put up water treatment plants at all our mines. All that has helped us become 3.6x more water positive. We are on our way to increasing it to 5x,” says Misra. “In the past three years, we have consistently produced more than 1MT and launched a capacity expansion plan for 2MT. The first phase, involving an investment of In FY25, the company registered a record production of 1,095 kilo tonnes of mined metal. Net profit stood at ₹10,353 crore on net sales of ₹33,041 crore and an Ebitda margin of 51%.

Though FY25 has been a year of high performance for the company, Misra believes his biggest achievement has been to oversee HZL’s successful enrolment as a member of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), a select group of global mining and metals companies that work to strengthen the industry’s contribution to sustainable development. “It was very crucial for HZL as we have to show the world that we are of global class,” says Misra. “But it was not easy. For the last four years, the ICMM did not allow any company to become a member, rather two were dropped. This year we and Maaden [Saudi Arabian Mining Company] have become members. They got us audited by a third party, and gave us a report of our readiness to imbibe all the global governance models within two years... The next two years are crucial for us. We have to imbibe the global models completely.”

But then, why take so much trouble? “If you don’t join a gym, you don’t force yourself into their discipline. Similarly, here every year we have to struggle to remain there. Every year they will come and audit us,” says Misra.

HZL is the world’s largest integrated zinc producer, among the Top 5 global steel producers, and the only integrated producer of zinc, steel, and lead in India. But Misra wants to see HZL as a much bigger player in terms of diversified offerings. He also wants the company to play a leadership role in India’s National Critical Mineral Mission by investing in systematic exploration and processing technologies in alignment with national goals of resource security and sustainability. “Currently we have zinc, lead, and silver, and we are slowly adding copper too. Going ahead, the focus will be on critical minerals, and we have already won three blocks (tungsten, potash, and rare-earth elements),” he says. “Our primary purpose is to extract ores that the country needs. Foreign players may not come to India for these blocks, since they have no experience of the geology here. Since we have been here since 1965, we have a good understanding of the geology of base metals. That is our core strength”.

Last year, HZL established its own exploration company, Hindmetal Exploration Services Pvt. Ltd (HESPL). The subsidiary has been authorised by the government to carry out exploration activity on behalf of any other company, independently. While his primary engagement is with HZL, Misra is also an executive director on the board of parent company Vedanta Ltd.

Jogging is not his only passion. He loves books, music and travel, and taking HZL to new heights.