Ratan Naval Tata

Chairman, Tata Group

Date of Birth: 28/12/1937
Place of Birth: Bombay

Ratan N. Tata is the Chairman of the Tata Group, an industrial conglomerate that began life as the cotton trading company of his great-greatfather, Jamshetji Tata. The Group now has revenues of US$71 billion and a global presence. Its operations in twelve African countries primarily involve vehicle sales and steel production.

Tata opened a branch of its Taj brand of luxury hotels in Cape Town in August. Ratan Tata has taken personal interest in the Nano, ‘the world’s smallest car’, which Tata Motors aims at low-income consumers. A South Africa launch for the tiny vehicle is expected in 2011. Alongside India’s Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma, Ratan Tata came to Johannesburg in September to head the India-South Africa CEO Forum, which discussed preferential trade measures to increase already substantial trade between the two countries.

Born 1937 in Bombay, Tata joined the family business in 1962 with a job at Tata Steel. Early leadership roles did not bode well. In 1971, he was made Director of Tata’s National Radio and Electronics Company, which foundered after extended labour disputes. He then took the lead at Empress Mills, Tata’s 100-year-old textiles company, in 1977. By 1986, too cumbersome to compete, it also closed. From 1981, he became Director of Tata Industries, the Mumbai-based holding company of several high-tech ventures. In 1991, he took over the chairmanship of Tata Group from JRD Tata, a distant relative, who had steered the Group since 1938.

Since Tata, a lifelong bachelor, will not be passing the torch to an heir, the search for a successor is on. The group formed a panel to find the next Chairman ahead of his retirement in 2012. His legacy will be the Group’s overseas expansion, which also saw the purchase of prestige brands and industrial powerhouses like Britain’s Jaguar Land Rover and Corus Steel.

Tata earned a BSc in structural engineering from Cornell University in the United States in 1962, and completed the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School in 1975. This month he bequeathed Harvard a $50 mn. donation, two years after giving the same to Cornell. Tata is advisor to a number of governments. He sits on the board of South Africa’s International Investment Council, and in September 2010 joined British Prime Minister David Cameron’s team of business advisors.