Apurv Ajit Upadhye
Warwick,United Kingdom
Summary
Automotive and EV leader with 24 years of international experience in OEMs and Tier-1 companies. Proficient in overseeing large engineering teams and managing substantial budgets, achieving successful launches of EV, Hybrid, and ICE platforms. Focused on enhancing customer experience through effective thermal management and climate control strategies. Strong background in driving business transformation and improving operational effectiveness in global e-mobility contexts.
Overview
24
24
years of professional experience
Work history
Manager – Body Thermal & Climate System
Jaguar Land Rover – United Kingdom
Warwick, United Kingdom
02.2022 - 01.2026
- Define long term-technology vision that reduced system complexity by 25% across global platforms enabling higher scalability and lower manufacturing
- Lead thermal and cabin climate technology strategy and roadmap, identifying future-ready solutions, maturity plans, and transition path across platforms
- Transformed cross functional operational operating models across Engineering, Manufacturing, Purchasing to streamline governance, successfully reducing concept to validation cycle time by 20% for the new generation EV platforms
- Provide enterprise -level leadership for vehicle thermal and cabin climate systems across EV, Hybrid and ICE platforms within Advance product creation
- Own vehicle -level cabin comfort and thermal attribute targets, balancing customer comfort, air quality, NVH, EV Range, energy consumption and system efficiency
- Directly contribute to Customer Love, ensuring thermal and comfort attributes meets brand, customer and market expectation
- Directed £20M + combined engineering resource and technology budget, implementing rigorous cost discipline and value led investment strategies.
- Defined long term technology roadmaps and supplier engagement strategies to ensure scalability and risk mitigation for future platform
- Restructured supplier engagement strategies, transitioning from transactional vendors to strategic-technology partners, securing 10% cost saving on multi year development programs.
- Accountable for thermal architecture decisions, technology readiness progression, and supplier strategy across EV and ICE programs
- Lead and develop multi-disciplinary engineering organisations (12+ direct, extended matrix teams) building capability, accountability and succession.
- Shadow Department head, contributing to product & technology portfolio planning, organisational capability strategy, supplier strategy and execute investment governance.
Program Manager- Global Automotive Programs
Lear Corporation United Kingdom
Coventry , United Kingdom
07.2021 - 01.2022
- Led cross functional global automotive programs, aligning engineering, manufacturing, finance, purchasing & quality
- Managed programme budgets, resources, delivery milestone and executive reporting
Module Leader- Small SUV Architecture / Manager, Climate Control System
Tata Technologies – United Kingdom (role based in JLR Onsite)
Warwick, United Kingdom
09.2016 - 07.2021
- Accountable for end -to-end delivery of Climate and thermal systems from concept through validation and series industrialisation.
- Owned product design maturity, ensuring progression through concept, detailed design, and release readiness in line with programme gateways
- Led concept validation activities, including feasibility assessment, system trade-offs, and early technical risk identification
- Accountable for simulation-led development, including 1D /CFD correlation, performance prediction, and design optimization to meet thermal, efficiency, and comfort targets.
- Accountable system integration at vehicle level, ensuring Climate and thermal systems were fully integrated with powertrain, body, electrical controls, geometry integration and vehicle attributes.
- Led global, multi-disciplinary engineering and supplier teams to meet cost, quality, timing and vehicle attribute targets.
- Owned system level technical decisions, balancing performance, cost, manufacturability, and maturity across development lifecycle.
- Accountable for technical supplier engagement and delivery, including design maturity reviews, FMEA/DVP alignment, validation readiness, and resolution of complex system-level issues
- Accountable for vehicle -level engineering sign-off of climate systems, ensuring integration, attribute performance, and programme readiness
- Acted as primary technical interface to senior stakeholders, providing clear engineering status, risks, and sign-off recommendation at programme gateways.
Technical lead engineer
Altran (Penso-JLR based) –Lead Engineer - Door Casing & Mechanism
Coventry, United Kingdom
05.2015 - 08.2016
- Responsible for Product features & derivatives sign-off, Component Package, OQ/PQ, color harmony, Styling Surface feasibility, fixing and datum strategy sign off
- Responsible for Design delivery meeting the JLR BOD target, tooling feasibility, CAE results accomplishment, packaging update, DFMEA & DV sign off, PACN, WERS release, RMDV, AIMS
Senior Manager, Climate Control
Volkswagen Group India Region –
Pune , India
12.2008 - 03.2015
- Owned vehicle-level climate system strategy and architecture across PQ25 India Platform, aligning thermal performance, customer comfort, and energy efficiency targets
- Accountable for end-to end system engineering: concept definition, design maturity, simulation (1D /CFD),DV/PV system integration, and vehicle level sign-off
- Led integration of HVAC system with Powertrain, electrical and vehicle attributes, manging complex trad-offs between performance, efficiency, and cost
- Delivered €2.2M+ annual cost optimisation through strategic localisation & technology roadmapping
- Provided functional leadership to multi-disciplinary teams, strengthening system engineering capability and supporting multiple vehicle programmes concurrently
Various Engineering and leadership position
Tech Mahindra (Mahindra Engineering Services) | Grupo Antolin | Mahle Behr | Tata Yazaki
Pune, India
09.2001 - 12.2008
Education
Post-Graduate Diploma - e-Mobility
IIT Bombay
Mumbai11.2027
MBA Essentials - General
London School of Economics and Political Science
London 09.2024
B. Tech & Diploma - Mechanical Engineering
MIT- YCMOU AND GOVT POLYTECHNIC PANAJI
Pune & Panaji07.2001
Volkswagen Global Leadership Program - Leadership Program
Volkswagen Academy
Punee09.2012
Tata Business Excellence Model for Managers -
TBEM
Warwick09.2025
Skills
- Product knowledge and integration
- Technical proficiency
- Product development
- Initiative taking
- Leadership skills
- Product knowledge
- Strategic planning
- Project Management
- Process Improvement
- Budget management
- Critical-thinking
Executive Capabilities
- Enterprise-scale leadership and decision making
- EV, Hybrid & ICE platform strategy and delivery
- Vehicle thermal and cabin comfort ownership at vehicle -attribute level
- Engineering resource and technology investment management (£20M + budget capability)
- Business transformation and operating model improvement
- Cross functional leadership across engineering, manufacturing, finance, purchasing, quality and suppliers
Timeline
Manager – Body Thermal & Climate System
Jaguar Land Rover – United Kingdom
02.2022 - 01.2026
Program Manager- Global Automotive Programs
Lear Corporation United Kingdom
07.2021 - 01.2022
Module Leader- Small SUV Architecture / Manager, Climate Control System
Tata Technologies – United Kingdom (role based in JLR Onsite)
09.2016 - 07.2021
Technical lead engineer
Altran (Penso-JLR based) –Lead Engineer - Door Casing & Mechanism
05.2015 - 08.2016
Senior Manager, Climate Control
Volkswagen Group India Region –
12.2008 - 03.2015
Various Engineering and leadership position
Tech Mahindra (Mahindra Engineering Services) | Grupo Antolin | Mahle Behr | Tata Yazaki
09.2001 - 12.2008
Post-Graduate Diploma - e-Mobility
IIT Bombay
MBA Essentials - General
London School of Economics and Political Science
B. Tech & Diploma - Mechanical Engineering
MIT- YCMOU AND GOVT POLYTECHNIC PANAJI
Volkswagen Global Leadership Program - Leadership Program
Volkswagen Academy
Tata Business Excellence Model for Managers -
TBEM