G Krishnakumar has taken over as the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), the company said in a statement on Friday. 

An electrical engineer from NIT, Tiruchirapalli and a postgraduate in financial management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, Krishnakumar is an industry veteran with diverse leadership experience across business and functional domains in his 36-year journey at the state-run oil marketing company.

He has been at the core of BPCL’s pioneering work in revolutionising the downstream fuel retailing industry in the country, leading the organisation’s customer-centric forays in convenience retailing, premium fuels, in a way heralding the digital age of BPCL at the turn of the century using CRM and Loyalty, a first in the Indian oil industry. 

He has developed and nurtured winning brands like Petro Card, SmartFleet Speed, In & Out, which have been significant contributors to BPCL’s differentiated customer value proposition in the marketplace, reinforcing the Pure for Sure customer promise.

Prior to his elevation to the board, as the head of BPCL’s Lubricants business, he spearheaded brand MAK’s aggressive growth in the domestic and international markets, and in the expansion of the product portfolio to cover new and emerging industrial, agricultural, passenger and commercial vehicle segments. 

He also championed the expansion of the service dimension of the MAK brand - MAK Quik, for quick oil change for 2-wheelers which has since been adopted by millions of customers. 

He is also an avid quizzer, a voracious reader, a passionate cricket fan and a golfer.