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Wednesday 30 March 2011

RATAN TATA


Ratan Naval Tata

Tata at Trident Hotel, April 2010.
BornDecember 28, 1937 (age 73)
BombayBombay Presidency,British India
ResidenceColaba,MumbaiIndia[1]
NationalityIndia Indian
EthnicityParsi
Alma materCornell University
Harvard University
OccupationChairman of Tata Group
AwardsPadma Bhushan (2000)
Padma Vibhushan (2008)
Order of the British Empire(2009)
Ratan Naval Tata is the present Chairman of Tata Sons and therefore, Tata Group,.[2] He is also the chairman of major Tata companies such as Tata SteelTata MotorsTata PowerTata Consultancy ServicesTata TeaTata ChemicalsThe Indian Hotels Company and Tata Teleservices.

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Early life and Education

Ratan Tata born to Naval Tata and Soonoo Commisariat in the Tata family, a prominent family belonging to the Parsi community. Ratan is the great-grandson of Tata group founder Jamsedji Tata. After his parents separated in 1944, he was brought up by his grandmother Lady Navajbai and did his schooling in Mumbai from Campion School. Later, he enrolled in Cornell University, where he earned a B.S inarchitecture with structural engineering in 1962, and has also completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School[1]

Career at Tata Sons

When he returned to India in 1962 after turning down a job with IBM on the advice of JRD, he was sent to Jamshedpur to work on the shop floor at Tata Steel with other blue-collar employees, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace.[3] In 1971, he was appointed the Director of National Radio and Electronics (Nelco), which was in dire straits when he came on board: with losses of 40% and barely 2% share of the consumer electronics market. However, just when he turned it around (from 2% to 25% market share), the Emergency was declared. A weak economy and labour issues compounded the problem and Nelco was quickly near collapse again.
For his next assignment, in 1977 he was asked to turn around the sick Empress Mills, which he did. However, he was refused a Rs 50 lakh investment required to make the textile unit competitive. Empress Mills floundered and was finally closed in 1986.
In 1981, JRD Tata stepped down as Tata Industries chairman, naming Ratan as his successor. He was heavily criticized for lacking experience in running a company of the scale of Tata Industries.[3]
In 1991, he was appointed group chairman of the Tata group. As group chairman, he has been responsible for converting "the corporate commonwealth" of different Tata-affiliated companies into a cohesive company. He has been responsible for the acquisition of TetleyJaguar Land Rover and Corus, which have turned Tata from a largely India-centric company into a global business, with 65% revenues coming from abroad. He also pushed the development of Indica and the Nano. He is widely credited for the success of the Tata Group of companies, especially after the liberalization of controls after the 1990s.[1]

Recognition and Honorary Appointments

Ratan Tata serves in senior capacities in various organisations in India and he is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. Tata is on the board of governors of the East-West Center, the advisory board of RAND's Center for Asia Pacific Policy and serves on the program board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS initiative.[4]
Ratan Tata's foreign affiliations include membership of the international advisory boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International GroupJP Morgan Chase and Booz Allen Hamilton. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the RAND CorporationUniversity of Southern California and of his alma materCornell University.[5][6] He also serves as a board member on the Republic of South Africa's International Investment Council and is a member of the Asia-Pacific advisory committee for the New York Stock Exchange. In 2010, he joined BMB Group as an advisory board member.
He has also been appointed to the following honorary distinctions:

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