{"id":27773,"date":"2020-10-22T21:56:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T01:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=27773"},"modified":"2020-10-29T23:13:37","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T03:13:37","slug":"magna-appoints-kotagiri-to-succeed-walker-as-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/magna-appoints-kotagiri-to-succeed-walker-as-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Magna appoints Kotagiri to succeed Walker as CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Seetarama (Swamy) Kotagiri will succeed Don Walker as CEO of Magna International on January 1, the Aurora-based automotive parts giant announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Walker, who has served as the company\u2019s CEO for the last 15 years, will retire at the end of 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven Swamy\u2019s role in aligning the company\u2019s strategy with the megatrends impacting new mobility and the \u2018car of the future,\u2019 he is the right leader to take Magna forward,\u201d said William L. Young, Chairman of Magna\u2019s Board of Directors, in a statement. \u201cSwamy has a strong command of the business, sound judgment, and is a strategic thinker who can drive disciplined execution. I\u2019ve been impressed by Swamy\u2019s ability to inspire people to think innovatively and deliver their best work to benefit Magna\u2019s customers. Swamy also has an innate leadership quality of being able to take complex problems and break them down so that people can understand and solve them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walker, a resident of King, has led Magna since 2005, after a previous stint as company CEO between 1994 and 2001. Over the last 33 years, he has served the company in various capacities including Vice President of Product Development and Engineering, Chief Operating Officer and President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeading Magna and working with all our great employees has been a tremendous honor and I am extremely proud of everything we have accomplished together,\u201d said Walker. \u201cIn addition to Swamy\u2019s strong technical and operational strengths, he has played an integral role in advancing the company\u2019s position in the changing mobility landscape and encouraging a start-up mindset to solve problems with solutions from outside our industry. I am confident in Swamy\u2019s future-focused approach and leadership to move Magna forward into the next decade and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kotagiri joined the automotive industry more than 25 years ago, 21 of which have been spent at Magna. He has previously served as the company\u2019s Chief Technology Officer and was responsible for steering the company\u2019s innovation and new product strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBuilding on Magna\u2019s industry leadership is very important to me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt starts with our people, who are among the most talented in the business. We will leverage the company\u2019s decentralized, entrepreneurial culture, which empowers every member of the Magna family to act as an owner and think as if they were part of a start-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the next transformation in mobility upon us, Magna can build on its current position of strength, derived from leading capabilities across key areas of the vehicle, financial stability and strong leadership. The evolution of the mobility ecosystem presents a range of opportunities directly related to Magna\u2019s strengths.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seetarama (Swamy) Kotagiri will succeed Don Walker as CEO of Magna International on January 1, the Aurora-based automotive parts giant announced Tuesday. Mr. Walker, who has served as the company\u2019s CEO for the last 15 years, will retire at the end of 2020. \u201cGiven Swamy\u2019s role in aligning the company\u2019s strategy with the megatrends impacting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020-10-22-08.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7dX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 13:35:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}