Hassen will be based at the company's London office, and will be responsible for leading its digital strategy and operations, and information technology.

The home-grown tyremaker Apollo Tyres on Monday appointed Hizmy Hassen to its newly created position of the Chief Digital Officer. Hassen will be based at the company's London office, and will be responsible for leading the strategy and operations of its digital journey, including responsibility for information technology, the company said in a release.

He will be reporting to Neeraj Kanwar, Vice Chairman and MD, Apollo Tyres Ltd.

Neeraj Kanwar said, "With digitalization being a key focus area for the company, especially considering the challenges that we face today due to the global pandemic, we have created this position of the chief digital officer. Hizmy, who comes with 30-years of rich experience, will be the ideal person to develop and execute the future architecture roadmap and evolve the IT delivery model, through partnerships with cross-functional leaders across Apollo Tyres".

Hassan's previous assignment was with Coats PLC before which, he was with Unilever. In over 20 years with Coats, he has worked across areas of the supply chain, information technology and digital enablement. He was responsible for digital and technology within Coats Group Plc globally.

Hassan is credited with transforming the global technology function at Coats, implementing a cloud strategy as well as other modern technologies to underpin digital transformation. He has pioneered digital solutions achieving very high adoption levels, leading to a total transformation of the Coats' go-to-market strategy. He led the digitalization of Coats' customer-facing interactions which laid the foundation for its sales growth and increased productivity.

About his joining Apollo Tyres, Hassen said, "I am excited to be a part of this dynamic and growing organization. I believe that Apollo Tyres is already moving rapidly on the digitalization journey; my focus would be to challenge and improve upon the existing processes and systems in the company to deliver the best business results".

Hassen drove the set-up of 'Factory 4.0', and with his extensive experience in supply chain management, he created a truly integrated global supply chain with SAP (ERP system), as well as advanced supply chain management systems. This helped reduce net working capital and the supply chain cost base and improve customer service levels.