Bowie, MD - The Tire Industry Association (TIA), a leader in tire safety and education, has announced the honorees for the 2018 Hall of Fame and Ed Wagner Leadership Award. The inductions will take place at the Tire Industry Honors Awards Ceremony on Monday, Oct. 29 at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.
The ceremony is open to all and complimentary tickets may be reserved here: Registration Form.
The 2018 Hall of Fame honorees include Arvind Poddar, chairman and managing director of Balkrishna Industries (BKT).
The Hall of Fame Award is the Tire Industry Association’s highest honor that recognizes individuals who have made a significant impact within the tire, rubber and transportation industries. The Ed Wagner Leadership Award is presented to individuals or companies that demonstrate leadership or innovation in products and services that foster and promote the tire, retreading and/or tire recycling industries.
“We are pleased to introduce our new class of exceptional industry leaders as recipients for the Hall of Fame and Ed Wagner Leadership Award,” Roy Littlefield, executive vice president of the Tire Industry Association, said. “On behalf of TIA, we extend our congratulations and are honored to recognize these amazing individuals who have proven themselves as key industry influencers. We look forward to having them join us in Vegas on Monday, October 29th.”
Poddar began his career at BKT in early 2000 and immediately sought to take the company forward and make it profitable. He saw that a complete change in the company’s model must happen. Poddar decided to enter the OTR market with a vision to make BKT a global player. With more than 93 percent of the production being exported to very sophisticated markets in more than 130 countries, BKT experienced remarkable growth in terms of revenue and profits and became the star company for the investors and shareholders.
After the shortage of the large OTR in 2011, Poddar ventured into expanding production into large OTR tires which required sizable investment of $500+ million, which was equal to the total net worth of the company. With that came the most sophisticated Bhuj plant with installed capacity of all three BKT plants combined. BKT filled the needs of the market and sustained the OTR consumers with a quality product of value in terms of cost/hour or cost/mile. The BKT product became the quality product of choice and became best sales rep for the company. BKT now enjoys 6 percent share of the world OTR market and with a turnover close to USA 1 billion. Under Poddar’s leadership, the BKT tires demand has kept pace with the production increase.
