Krishnakumar Gopalan Takes On Role Of CMD At BPCL

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd’s (BPCL) board approved the appointment of Krishnakumar Gopalan as Chairman & Managing Director (C&MD) of the company with effect from Friday. The appointment is until Gopalan's superannuation or “until further orders”, said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

During the 36 years of his professional career in BPCL, he has held key positions across the Marketing and Human Resources functions with diverse leadership experience across business and functional domains.

Gopalan is an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli (formerly REC Trichy) with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He also holds a Master’s degree in Financial management from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management.

Gopalan replaces Arun Kumar Singh, who retired as chairman in October 2022.

He was 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 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Loyalty, a first in the Indian oil Industry.

Gopalan 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.  

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. As Executive Director (HRD), he was focused on major initiatives in the areas of Learning & Development and Talent management.