Turbo charged

Venkatachari Jagannathan
13 November 2003

Voith Turbo India managing director Volker Grosse Wilde is a happy man today as the demand for his products from the Indian power sector is surging ahead

Chennai: Forty-eight-year-old German Volker Grosse Wilde, managing director, Voith Turbo, didn't have any clue about the Andhra Pradesh summer when he landed in Hyderabad early this year.

Wilde came to India with his wife (their two children — son Pascal and daughter Jennifer — are studying in Germany) as the company's deputy managing director with a mandate to assume the mantle soon and chart the Indian subsidiary's future growth path.

"It was a terrible summer," he recalls. This year Andhra Pradesh experienced one of the worst summers with the temperature going over 45 degrees and the heat wave claiming over a thousand lives. "Nevertheless, my wife likes this place. And she is learning the Andhra cuisine."

For Wilde, a business economics graduate, the Indian assignment is the first one outside Germany, his home country. Prior to this assignment, Wilde was the commercial director, Voith Kuesel. As expected, April 2003 saw his elevation as managing director and Wilde is all set to heat up the market segments where Voith Turbo is currently present.