Santosh Iyer is the Managing Director & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India. He has been associated
with Mercedes-Benz India since 2009 in various leadership roles. Santosh has over two
decades of diverse experience in the Indian automobile industry, spreading across sales,
marketing, retail, customer service and corporate affairs.
Prior to being elevated as the MD & CEO, Santosh had been the Vice President, Sales &
Marketing. He successfully led Mercedes-Benz’s digital transformation of the business,
retaining the market leadership and establishing online sales. He demonstrated remarkable
leadership in managing the business and steering it to a profitable growth during the
pandemic. Santosh was pivotal in conceptualizing and implementing ‘Retail of the Future’
business model, which is now an industry benchmark.
Santosh earlier headed the Customer Services, Corporate Affairs & CSR functions (Jan-2016
to June 2019) at Mercedes-Benz India. He played an important role in the turnaround of the
Customer Services business with the successful setting up of new initiatives like MB Tyres,
Parts Trading and the Mercedes-Benz Academy. He also drove ‘service differentiator’ as the
key parameter towards achieving service excellence and customer loyalty.
Santosh started his career with Avery India Ltd. Later his entrepreneurial ambitions took
him to Nepal for distribution & servicing of capital equipment while also supporting the
automotive business. Setting up a successful business there, he decided to move back to
India, staying with the automotive segment, as he joined Yamaha Motors India. He
subsequently had various management stints across Indian subsidiaries of automotive
MNCs like Toyota and Ford, before joining Mercedes-Benz India.
A Graduate in Commerce from Mumbai University, Santosh holds a MBA from University of
Indianapolis and a Masters in Corporate Governance and Compliance from the University of
Lake Konstanz, Germany.
