Tarun Mehta

Tarun Mehta is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ather Energy, the electric two-wheeler company he started with Swapnil Jain.

IIT Madras and the start of Ather

Mehta studied at IIT Madras, where he and Jain spent years working on engineering projects. They had discussed building an energy company even before graduation. Their early thinking was broader than electric scooters and included areas such as decentralised energy, storage and battery systems.

After college, Mehta worked at Ashok Leyland. He later returned frequently to IIT Madras, where he and Jain began experimenting with battery packs and electric-vehicle technology. Their first serious product direction involved batteries and battery swapping. Customer research, however, showed a deeper problem: people were interested in electric technology but did not like the electric scooters available in the market.

That insight pushed them to build the vehicle itself. Ather Energy was founded in 2013 and developed its own battery systems, software, electronics, vehicle architecture and charging network rather than relying almost entirely on existing suppliers.

Building a deep-technology company

Mehta has consistently argued that electric vehicles require a different engineering model from traditional two-wheelers. His view is that companies need strong in-house product and engineering capability because batteries, software, charging and vehicle systems are tightly connected.

That philosophy made Ather slower and more capital-intensive in its early years, but it also created a large body of internal technology. The company survived several difficult periods before scaling the Ather 450 range, launching the family-oriented Rizta and eventually listing on the Indian stock exchanges in 2025.

Work philosophy

Mehta’s public conversations show a long-term approach to company building. He has spoken about doing difficult engineering work, going down multi-year technical “rabbit holes” and thinking about building an organisation that can last for decades.

When discussing young builders, he emphasises developing a personal philosophy about culture, how products should be built and what kind of problems are worth working on. His more recent comments also stress learning directly from customers and carrying the technology developed for early adopters into products designed for a much larger market.

Ather’s current governance disclosures identify Mehta as Executive Director and CEO.