Mystery surrounding Karl Slym's sudden death deepens

A day after the tragic death of Tata Motors’ MD Karl Slym, Thai media has begun indicating that he committeed suicide.

The Nation, a Thai daily, has said a suicide note was found in his room, Thai police are investigating his death which happened when he fell from the 22nd floor of Shangri La hotel in Bangkok.

A Reuters story quotes Bangkok's Police Lieutenant Somyot Bonnyakaew saying “We didn’t find any sign of a struggle. We found a window open. The window was very small so it was not possible that he would have slipped. He would have had to climb through the window to fall out because he was a big man. From my initial investigation we believe he jumped.” The same story said the police found a three-page note, written in English, which they were translating into Thai. An autopsy on Slym’s body should begin on Monday.

[caption id=“attachment_454599” align=“alignleft” width=“313”]  Karl Slym[/caption]

But none of this has been confirmed by Tata Motors, whose spokesperson has refused to speculate on the cause of Slym’s death. To those of us who knew Slym rather well, it is shocking that he would take his own life. He was variously credited with having lead General Motors (between 2007 and 2011 in India) expertly out of bankruptcy fallout in India, being instrumental in forging a three way partnership of GM with Wuling and SAIC of China and now, in having some small success in beginning a turn around of Tata Motors’ domestic vehcile business. Professionally speaking, Karl Slym was fairly successful in his India stints.

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As Firstpost said yesterday and as several newspapers have echoed today, Slym was a people’s man. He was that corporate rarity: easily accessible, witty and almost self deprecating. His witty one liners often had us in splits. So it is hard to take in the suicide angle.

Murali Gopalan of the Hindu Business Line remembers Karl as having a fantastic sense of humour. “And, yet, he was tough as nails. This was evident during his days as chief of General Motors’ operations in India five years ago. The American parent had declared bankruptcy and the collapse of Detroit was hitting the headlines. It was during this time that Karl got into the act, reassuring GM’s customers and dealers in India through an aggressive ad campaign that everything was all right.”

A Hindustan Times report on Slym’s death begins by saying how the restructuring process at Tata Motors will now suffer in his absence. The same report says he was working on more Nano upgrades and had been instrumental in getting the next generation petrol engine developed at Tata Motors, a company largely known till now for its diesel vehicle range. Slym had already put in motion a programme to rationalise employees at the company and had also initiatied several moves to restructure its operations to bring in more synergy.

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The Economic Times says Ravi Kant, the former MD of Tata Motors and currently non-executive director and vice-chairman of the company, may take temporary charge till a successor for Slym is found. But a Tata Motors spokesperson did not confirm this to Firstpost, merely stating that a successor to Slym will be decided by the company’s board in coming weeks. There has been some speculation about Ravi Pisharody, who is currently Executive Director for Tatas’ commercial vehicle division, now finally getting to don the MD’s boots. But again, Ravi Kant and Pisharody’s names have not been confirmed by the company.

The ET story says one of the strongest criticisms of Tata Motors on the passenger vehicle front has been the lack of new products. Slym proposed to fix this with technology and engineering inputs from R&D departments across England, Italy, South Korea and India. The company had identified product gaps in its passenger vehicles and solidified the product portfolio, right up to 2020. Well, with Slym gone, his successor will have quite a role to fill.