Dr Ashok Kumar Panda on Saturday (May 9, 2026) assumed charge as Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).
Prior to this, he was serving as Director (Finance) of the company. He had also held the additional charge of Director (Commercial) for around nine months before T N Natarajan was appointed to the post.
Dr Panda began his journey in SAIL as a Management Trainee (Technical) in 1992 after completing his BE in Electrical Engineering. Over the past three decades, he has worked across multiple plants and units of the company and handled responsibilities in operational, financial and commercial domains.
He holds specialization in Finance from Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar (XIMB) and later earned a PhD in Business Finance.
During his tenure as Director (Finance), Dr Panda led several strategic initiatives aimed at improving operational efficiency and profitability. He played a key role in deleveraging efforts that reportedly helped reduce borrowings by nearly ₹20,000 crore. He was also associated with implementation of cost reduction measures, improvement in production efficiency and policy reforms across operations, finance, sales and human resources.
In his role as Director (Commercial), he focused on improving sales volumes, strengthening product branding, enhancing Net Sales Realisation (NSR) and reducing inventory levels.
After assuming charge as CMD, Dr Panda said SAIL is preparing for its next phase of expansion to 35 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). He emphasized that workplace safety, raw material security through domestic mining and overseas assets, and expansion of value-added product portfolio would remain key priorities of the company.
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