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 Slym, 51, had attended a board meeting of Tata's Thailand unit in
the Thai capital, a company spokeswoman said, giving no further
details. A post-mortem report is due on Monday, she said.
A native of Britain, Slym was hired in 2012 to revive flagging sales
and market share in the domestic business of India's biggest
automaker, which is part of the Tata conglomerate.
"His death comes at a time when the company seems to be close to
turning the corner, with new designs and a new petrol engine family,
which hasn't been Tata's strong point," said Anil Sharma, an analyst
with IHS Automotive.
Tata Motors recently introduced a new petrol engine for its
passenger vehicles and has been planning to launch a new hatchback
and compact sedan this year, its first new branded passenger
vehicles since 2010.
"It (his death) comes before his efforts bear fruit. We should be
able to see the results of his work in a year or two," Sharma said.
Slym led the automaker's operations in India and international
markets including South Korea, Thailand and South Africa, excluding
the Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) luxury unit that it acquired in
2008.
Slym "was providing leadership to the company through a challenging
market environment", the company said in a statement on Sunday.
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Tata Motors had lost traction in its passenger vehicle market as its
domestic and foreign rivals rolled out new models while it mostly
tweaked existing models and offered heavy price discounts.
The firm has not had a hit car at home since its Indica launch in
1998. Sales of the Nano, the world's cheapest car which it unveiled
in 2008, have been lacklustre.
Before joining Tata Motors, Slym was executive vice president of
SGMW Motors, China, a General Motors <GM.N> joint venture. Before
that he had headed General Motors in India.
(Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee; editing
by Tony Munroe and Jane Baird)
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