India’s Best CEOs 2025: Captain Cool S.N. Subrahmanyan is Transforming L&T to make it Ready for the Next Frontier

THE RECENTLY REFURBISHED fourth floor of L&T House at Ballard Estate in Mumbai could easily rival the grandest banquet halls of South Mumbai’s five-star hotels. From its windows, one can see a breathtaking panorama — ships, boats, and tugs gliding gracefully across the deep blue waters of the Arabian Sea, set against a backdrop of clear skies and Mumbai’s latest engineering marvel, the Atal Setu, a good part of which was built by Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Ballard Estate itself carries an air of heritage and distinction. Between 1908 and 1914, the Bombay Port Trust transformed what was once a sea-flooded foreshore into a thriving commercial district lined with stately buildings in European Renaissance style. In the 1960s, L&T acquired the Bombay office of Imperial Chemical Industries and transformed it into the company’s headquarters. When in Mumbai, chairman and MD, S.N. Subrahmanyan often operates from this elegant and vast office — meeting clients, holding internal discussions, or simply soaking in the serene energy of the space. Yet, he is not confined to one address. At times, he works from the Landmark Building in Andheri, or from home opposite Antilia, Mukesh Ambani’s opulent home on Altamount Road. On other days, he can be found at the Powai campus, where the new 12-storey AM Naik Tower stands tall as the company’s primary corporate office. “Why make a group of people travel across the city to meet me?” he says with quiet composure. “I can go and meet them where they are.” It’s a philosophy that reflects his unassuming nature — a sharp contrast to that of his mentor and predecessor, A.M. Naik, who ruled L&T like a colossus for over two decades. Naik mostly preferred to meet people at his office at Landmark; Subrahmanyan, by contrast, prefers to walk up to them. If Naik’s persona was that of a commanding general who led from the front, Subrahmanyan’s is that of a calm captain who delegates maximum powers to subordinates. “He (Naik) was probably much tougher and more administratively strict than I am,” Subrahmanyan says with a smile. “He liked to run things his way. I prefer to run mine — perhaps with a bit more ease and good cheer.” “The comparison is unfair — the challenges were very different for both of us,” says SNS, as he is fondly known among friends and colleagues. Emotionally bound to L&T and driven by a deep sense of patriotic pride, Naik devoted over 58 years of his life to the company — from 1965 to 2023 — serving in multiple roles and shaping much of what L&T stands for today. He led the company through some of its most testing times — warding off two hostile takeover attempts and ring-fencing the organisation by making employees the largest shareholders through an employee welfare trust. ‘’I never faced such challenges; I am building on the strong foundation we created,” says SNS with humility. When Naik decided to step down, shareholders and industry watchers wondered what the future held for L&T — a vast conglomerate operating across more than 80 complex businesses. But SNS quickly put those doubts to rest. He took charge as CEO and MD on July 1, 2017, and later chairman and MD on October 1, 2023. In 2021, L&T unveiled Lakshya 2026, a strategic roadmap that aimed for revenues of ₹2.7 lakh crore and an order book of ₹3.4 lakh crore (a CAGR of 15% and 14%, respectively), and double-digit margins — from revenues worth ₹1.45 lakh crore and an order book just above ₹3 lakh crore in FY20. Even as the world battled the pandemic and global geopolitical turmoil, SNS steered L&T with strategic moves and bold vision. The results spoke for themselves: Lakshya 2026’s targets were achieved a year ahead of schedule. In FY25, the firm reported net revenues of ₹2.56 lakh crore — a three-year CAGR of 17.8%. Profit after tax (PAT) grew at a CAGR of 20.2% to ₹15,037 crore, while return on capital employed (RoCE) reached 14%, according to Capitaline data. L&T’s current order book is ₹6.5 lakh crore. SNS knows L&T inside out — a deep familiarity earned over four decades of service. His roots trace back to the serene Kalpathi village near Palakkad in Kerala. Born and raised in Chennai, he graduated in civil engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, and later completed a postgraduate degree in business management from the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune. He joined L&T in 1984 as a project planning engineer. Over the years, he played a pivotal role in building L&T’s infrastructure business into the largest in India, and among the biggest globally. He spearheaded the execution of projects, including the Navi Mumbai International Airport, the Mumbai underground metro, the Statue of Unity, the high-vacuum pressure chamber for the International Thermo-nuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the K9 vajra guns, the Atal Setu, the Ram mandir in Ayodhya, and the bullet train. With an Executive Management Programme from the London Business School adding to his credentials, SNS took on leadership roles across verticals before joining the L&T board in 2011. By the early 2010s, L&T’s aggressive business forays pushed it into tough times. The company had made significant investments in sectors such as defence & aerospace, shipbuilding, nuclear forgings, and thermal power equipment, anticipating a surge in demand. But when orders from the government were delayed or failed to materialise, RoCE plummeted from nearly 30% in 2007-09 to just 12% by 2012-13. The company had also spread itself far and wide — venturing into multiple geographies and unrelated businesses. To address these challenges, L&T launched a five-year strategic roadmap, Lakshya 2021, in 2016. The plan focussed on releasing locked capital, turning around underperforming assets, optimising working capital and costs, and exiting non-core businesses. Before SNS took charge, L&T had divested its stake in Kattupalli Port in Tamil Nadu and its 50% stake in Dhamra Port to Adani Ports & SEZ in FY16. Under his leadership, the company accelerated portfolio restructuring. Major non-core assets were sold — including the electrical & automation (E&A) business to Schneider Electric for ₹14,000 crore in 2018, a 99-MW hydroelectric plant in Uttarakhand, and the entire 51% stake in L&T Infrastructure Development Projects and L&T Infrastructure Engineering Ltd. “More are on the cards — you will hear soon,” SNS says with a characteristic blend of confidence and restraint. Likely divestments include non-core businesses such as the 1,400-MW Nabha power plant despite its strong performance. “Our core competency is in building power plants, not owning and operating them,” he adds. Hyderabad Metro, in which L&T invested over ₹20,000 crore, remains one of the biggest pain points. The project has been a financial drain for years, and efforts are under way to find an exit route. Other businesses, such as construction equipment, industrial valves, rubber processing machinery, and the two joint ventures with Mitsubishi for supercritical boilers and turbines, have also been marked as non-core. Globally, L&T has narrowed its focus, especially in the Middle East, to three key areas — hydrocarbons, power transmission and renewables. SNS has redefined the very structure of the group. Leveraging digital transformation, technology, and the global shift to green energy, he has sought to build a more agile, future-oriented tech-driven organisation. L&T, which employs about 500,000 people, has reorganised the group structure into seven clearly defined segments: Infrastructure, Energy, Hi-tech Manufacturing, IT & Technology Services (IT&TS), Financial Services, Development Projects, and ‘Other Businesses,’ which include realty, industrial valves, construction equipment, mining machinery, and rubber processing machinery. Within these verticals, sharper focus and business accountability were introduced. The infrastructure business, for instance, operates through three divisions — civil infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, and heavy civil. The energy business, headed by deputy MD Subramanian Sarma, has been reorganised around four core areas — green & clean energy, hydrocarbon onshore, carbonlite solutions, and hydrocarbon offshore. Recently, the renewable EPC business was separated from power transmission & distribution (T&D) into an independent vertical. Subrahmanyan says one of his major priorities is reducing costs and optimising assets. His message to business heads is clear — focus on strengthening existing businesses rather than chasing unrelated big opportunities such as commercial shipbuilding or EVs. “There may be a big opportunity in commercial shipbuilding, but our expertise lies in making defence ships,” he remarks with conviction. He expects robust growth from verticals such as L&T Realty and L&T Green, which, he says, could be listed once they achieve the desired scale. SNS’s current emphasis is on expanding the services sector, which he believes will generate stronger margins and steady growth. “I have the strength of focussing deeply on the businesses I handle,” he says, pointing to the turnaround at L&T Finance. Once a wholesale corporate lender — 60% wholesale and 40% retail — today it is 90% retail-focussed, with margins and AUM growing consistently. Its share price has surged from ₹65 to over ₹260. A similar transformation unfolded in the IT arm. L&T acquired IT firm Mindtree in a hostile takeover, and merged it with LTI to form LTIMindtree — now a $4.5 billion IT consulting and solutions powerhouse and one of India’s Top 5 IT firms. When CEO & MD Debashis Chatterjee retired, SNS brought back former Mindtree top executive Venu Lambu as CEO and whole-time director. “The management transition was smooth and cost-effective — there was no major upheaval cost,” he notes. The merger enabled the company to bid for large-scale orders, develop an AI platform, and grow both sales and PAT. Subrahmanyan is also laying the foundation for next-gen businesses — from semiconductor design to L&T Edutech, which trains youth in practical engineering, to L&T SuFin, an e-commerce marketplace for industrial goods, and Cloudfiniti, which offers cutting-edge data centre and cloud infrastructure solutions. Beyond the world of L&T, SNS is a cricket enthusiast, a passionate runner, and an avid reader. He relaxes with western classical music and finds solace in films. Taking out his mobile phone, he scrolls through and shows a list of Hollywood and Korean action-thrillers he recently watched on OTT platforms. “I like only action and thriller movies — they help me shut out work-related thoughts,” he says. That sense of balance — intense focus at work and mindful relaxation off it — seems to be the quiet strength behind L&T’s steady transformation under his watch.

India’s Best CEOs 2025: Captain Cool S.N. Subrahmanyan is Transforming L&T to make it Ready for the Next Frontier

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