GOVERNANCE WATCH
By InsidEntity Editorial Desk · Sep 25, 2026 · 6 min read
Who Is This Director | 25 September 2026
Deputy Managing Director & President, Larsen & Toubro Limited (NSE: LT)
Subramanian Sarma has sat on the board of Larsen & Toubro for eleven years, and for the first five of them he was a non-executive director while serving as chief executive of the group’s hydrocarbon subsidiary. In March 2025 that subsidiary was folded into the parent. A month later he was made Deputy Managing Director & President. L&T now describes his remit as its core EPC businesses, Infrastructure, Utilities & Metals, Energy Hydrocarbon and Renewables, along with L&T Energy GreenTech.
His career is a straight line through the engineering, procurement and construction industry: plant floor, design office, a rival contractor’s onshore division, then eleven years building L&T’s.
At a glance
| Current role | Deputy Managing Director & President, Larsen & Toubro, from 2 April 2025 |
|---|---|
| Term | To 3 February 2028 |
| On the L&T board since | 19 August 2015 |
| Board history | Non-executive director, 2015 to 2020; Whole-time Director & President (Energy), 19 August 2020 to 2025 |
| Oversees | Infrastructure, Utilities & Metals, Energy Hydrocarbon, Renewables and L&T Energy GreenTech, per L&T |
| Board committee | Risk Committee, per L&T |
| Previous employer | Petrofac, Managing Director, Onshore Engineering & Construction |
| Education | Chemical engineering, including an M.Tech from IIT Bombay |
| Nationality | India |
The career
Sarma began as a process engineer. By L&T’s account he was Shift-in-Charge of a large petrochemical plant at Patalganga, in Maharashtra, at 26, and then rose from senior process engineer to deputy chief of the process engineering department at an international design and consultancy firm within three years.
He spent close to three decades in the Middle East, across the oil and gas value chain. Immediately before L&T he was Managing Director of Petrofac’s Onshore Engineering & Construction business, responsible for its onshore projects worldwide.
He joined L&T in 2015 as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering, the group’s wholly owned oil and gas contracting subsidiary. By L&T’s account, the business doubled its revenues under him and ranked among the top three EPC contractors in the Middle East oil and gas sector for four consecutive years, first in 2019. The Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry named it EPC Company of the Year for 2020.
He was elected a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2026. IIT Bombay gave him its Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2021. He was CHEMTECH CEW Business Leader of the Year for engineering services in 2017.
The seat at L&T
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 19 August 2015 | Joins the L&T board as a non-executive director, while CEO and MD of L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering |
| 19 August 2020 | Becomes Whole-time Director & President (Energy), for five years |
| 1 March 2025 | L&T Energy Hydrocarbon Engineering, as the subsidiary had been renamed, is amalgamated into L&T |
| 21 March 2025 | Board announces his elevation and an extended term |
| 2 April 2025 | Deputy Managing Director & President, term to 3 February 2028, put to shareholders at the 2025 AGM |
The sequence is notable. The subsidiary was amalgamated into the parent on 1 March 2025, and the business Sarma had run as a separate company became part of L&T itself. Weeks later he was elevated to Deputy Managing Director & President, with the energy portfolio now inside the listed company.
The portfolio he now oversees is wider than energy. The oil and gas order book and the transition businesses sit with the same executive as L&T’s infrastructure and utilities businesses. By L&T’s account he also chairs several divisional boards and the group’s EHS and Quality Councils.
The governance read
He has never been an independent director of L&T. From 2015 to 2020 he was a non-executive director of L&T while serving as CEO and Managing Director of its wholly owned hydrocarbon subsidiary. His board classification was therefore non-executive, but he was simultaneously an executive of the L&T group. The distinction matters when assessing the history of L&T’s board independence.
His board commitments sit inside one group. The directorships on his record all sit within the L&T group, and the subsidiary board he led no longer exists as a separate company. For a director with a portfolio this wide, that concentration is a strength on bandwidth: his time is not divided across unrelated boards. It also means his entire governance record is one company’s.
Eleven years on the board. He has served on L&T’s board since August 2015, first non-executive and then executive. His present term runs to 3 February 2028.
What to watch
- 3 February 2028. The end of his current term. Whether it is extended, and who is being prepared to run the energy portfolio, will be one of the more visible succession questions at L&T.
- Infrastructure, hydrocarbons and transition under one executive. The same leader answers for L&T’s infrastructure, oil and gas and newer energy businesses. How L&T reports them, and whether it keeps them together, will show how it weighs them.
- The integrated energy business. The amalgamation took effect on 1 March 2025 and was accounted for from 1 April 2024, so the business now reports inside L&T itself rather than as a subsidiary. FY2026 is the first full year it has run inside the parent.
Sarma’s record is one of 17,000 director profiles on InsidEntity. Each one sets out a director’s board seats, roles and tenure in one place. See Subramanian Sarma’s full director record, or search the directors behind any company you invest in, work for or supply.
Related reading: Who is Simon Baloyi, the director? One seat, twenty-four years inside, and a tenure clock that has barely started; Who is Mahlape Sello SC, the Director? Her Full Governance Record.
Independent research. Not financial advice. No allegation of wrongdoing is made against any individual or entity named.
Know more. Risk less. Decide better.
Sources: Larsen & Toubro, press release, L&T pushes the pedal to accelerate growth. Mr Subramanian Sarma elevated as Deputy Managing Director & President, 21 March 2025; Larsen & Toubro, Notice of the 80th Annual General Meeting and Integrated Annual Report FY2024-25, filed 10 May 2025; Larsen & Toubro, disclosure on the amalgamation of L&T Energy Hydrocarbon Engineering Limited and L&T Offshore Private Limited, effective 1 March 2025; Larsen & Toubro, leadership profile of Subramanian Sarma; InsidEntity, Director Record: Subramanian Sarma.
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