Mr Chacko P. Thomas has been appointed as the Managing Director of the Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Co Pvt Ltd, the largest employee-owned plantation company in India.

This was announced by a company spokesperson after a meeting of the Board of Directors. Presently, the company employs more than 13,000 employees and all are shareholders.

Mr Chacko joined the then Tata Tea Ltd in 1992 as Assistant Manager in one of the tea estates. Since then, he has worked in several capacities. He was appointed General Manager and Head of Non-Tea operations in 2009. He is the recipient of several awards, including the ‘Excellence Award' instituted by the Tata Tea for continuous good performance during 2000-04 and the ‘Best Manager' award from Mr Ratan Tata in 2009-10.