India’s Best CEOs 2025: How Nirmal Kumar Minda Kept Uno Minda on the Growth Path Despite the Speed Bumps

PERSEVERANCE, PATIENCE, and adaptability make up the secret sauce responsible for the success of Nirmal Kumar Minda, the executive chairman of Uno Minda. A veteran of India’s auto ancillaries industry, Minda has spent nearly half a century toiling in the space and navigated the licence raj, the entry of Japanese OEMs, liberalisation and deregulation of the industry, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“For me, every adversity has presented itself as an opportunity,” he says. Adversity is not new to Minda, who joined the family business — then called Minda Industries — at just 17, after his father spread himself thin running the business, which took a toll on his health. From a single factory in Delhi’s Wazirabad, the company now operates 75 facilities worldwide, expanding the footprint of a business that began from a workshop in Kamla Nagar in New Delhi, where it was established by Shadi Lal Minda, Nirmal Minda’s father, in 1958.