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Ratan Tata

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For Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, see Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata.
Ratan Tata
File:RNT Image.jpg
Born (1937-12-28) 28 December 1937 (age 86)
Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
NationalityIndian
Alma materCornell University
Harvard University
OccupationChairman of Tata Group
Years active1962-present
Spouseunmarried
AwardsLifetime Achievement Award (2012)
Padma Bhushan (2000)
Padma Vibhushan (2008)
KBE (2009)
Signature
Ratan Tata signature

Ratan Naval Tata, (Gujarati: રતન નવલ ટાટા; born 28 December 1937), is an Indian businessman who became chairman (1991– ) of the Tata Group, a Mumbai-based conglomerate.[2] He is a member of a prominent Tata family of Indian industrialists and philanthropists.

Among many other honours accorded him during his career, Tata received the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s most distinguished civilian awards, in 2000 and Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and Lifetime Achievement Award awarded by prestigious Rockefeller Foundation in 2012.[3][4] He has also been ranked as India's most powerful CEO.[5]

Early life

Ratan is the great-grandson of Tatas group founder Jamshedji Tata. His childhood was troubled, with his parents separating in the mid-1940s when he was merely seven and his younger brother Jimmy was five years old. Their mother moved out and both Ratan and his brother were raised by their grandmother Lady Navajbai.[6]

Tata started his schooling at Campion School and finished at Cathedral and John Connon School both in Bombay.[7] Ratan Tata completed his B.S. in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975.[8] He is a part of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.[9]

Career at Tata Sons

Tata began his career at the Tata empire in 1962; he initially worked on the shop floor of Tata Steel, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace.[10] 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.[10]

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 Tetley, Jaguar 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]

In August 2007, Ratan Tata lead Tata Group's acquisition of British steel maker Corus. At that time, this was the largest takeover of a foreign company by an Indian company, and resulted in Tata Group becoming the fifth largest steel producer in the world. According to the BBC, however, some analysts[which?] criticized the move, saying that Tata Group had overpaid for Corus and had prioritized national pride before its shareholders.[11]

Tata is set to retire in December 2012 to be succeeded by Cyrus Mistry, the 44-year-old son of Pallonji Mistry and managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group.[12]

Honours, awards and international recognition

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.[13]. Ratan Tata's foreign affiliations include membership of the international advisory boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group, JP Morgan Chase and Booz Allen Hamilton. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the RAND Corporation, University of Southern California and Cornell University.[14][15] 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.

In 2009, Tata was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (K.B.E.).

Year Name Awarding organization Ref.
2011 Hospitality Hall Of Honor Recognizing Taj Hotels.
2011 ABLF Lifetime Achievement Award (India) Asian Business Leadership Forum Awards [16]
2010 Business Leader of the Year The Asian Awards. [17]
2010 Honorary Doctor of Laws Pepperdine University. [18]
2010 Legend in Leadership Award Yale University. [19]
2010 Businessman of the Decade Federation of Indo-Israel Chambers of Commerce. [20]
2008 Honorary Doctor of Science Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. [21]
2008 Honorary Doctor of Law University of Cambridge. [22]
2007 Honorary Fellow London School of Economics. [23]
2007 Honorary Citizen of Singapore Singapore government.
2007 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. [24]
2005 Honorary Doctor of Science University of Warwick. [25]
2004 Honorary Degree of Doctor of Technology Asian Institute of Technology. [26]
2004 Honorary Economic Advisor Hangzhou, China. [26]
2001 Honorary Doctor of Business Administration Ohio State University. [27]
  • FIRST Award for Responsible Capitalism.[28]
  • 26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education, awarded by Cornell University[29]
  • Recipient of the 'Global Indian Award' at the NASSCOM Global Leadership Awards 2008[30]

References

  1. ^ a b "Amazing story of how Ratan Tata built an empire".
  2. ^ "Tata Group Website".
  3. ^ "Ratan Tata gets Lifetime Achievement Award". The Hindu. June 27, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2012.
  4. ^ "LN Mittal, Ratan Tata, Narayana Murthy get Padma Vibhushan". Retrieved 26 January 2008.
  5. ^ "Ratan Tata India's most powerful CEO, Mistry debuts at No. 15". Retrieved 25 May 2012.
  6. ^ "Ratan Tata rode the tiger economy and now he drives Jaguar". The Daily Telegraph. 30 Match 2008. Retrieved 31 March 2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |newspaper= (help)
  7. ^ "Ratan Tata goes back to school". Times of India. 31 March 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2012. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |newspaper= (help)
  8. ^ Sharma, Subramaniam (2006-10-18). "India's Tata Takes Leap With $7.6 Billion Corus Bid (Update1)". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2009-09-12.
  9. ^ Wikipedia: Alpha Sigma Phi
  10. ^ a b Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN, Dec 30, 2007, 04.26am IST (2007-12-30). "Times of India Article: Man of the Year? Its Ratan Tata". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 2011-02-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) Cite error: The named reference "MoY" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  11. ^ Vaswani, Karishma (16 August 2007). "Indian firms move to world stage". BBC News. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
  12. ^ "Cyrus P Mistry to succeed Ratan Tata". Retrieved 23 November 2011.
  13. ^ "Chairman Profile, Interviews and Press Articles". Tata Group Website.
  14. ^ Board of Trustees, University of Southern California, Accessed April 13, 2008.
  15. ^ Ratan Tata Joins USC Board of Trustees, USC News, August 30, 2005.
  16. ^ "ABLF Awards". Asian Business Leadership Forum Awards. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  17. ^ "Winners of the Asian Awards 2010". Times of India. October 2010.
  18. ^ "Pepperdine Confers Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree on Ratan N. Tata". Pepperdine University. September 2010.
  19. ^ "Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute to Honor Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata with "Legend in Leadership Award"". Yale University. September 2010.
  20. ^ "Ratan Tata selected 'Businessman of the decade'". The Hindu. September 2010.
  21. ^ "IIT Kharagpur confers doctorate on Ratan Tata". Economic Times. March 2008.
  22. ^ "University of Cambridge confers doctorate on Ratan Tata". University of Cambridge. March 2008.
  23. ^ "London School of Economics confers Honorary Fellowship on Ratan Tata". London School of Economics. March 2007.
  24. ^ "Carnegie Medal for Philanthropy on Ratan Tata". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. March 2007.
  25. ^ "University of Warwick confers Honorary Doctor of Science on Ratan Tata". London School of Economics. March 2005.
  26. ^ a b "Asian Institute of Technology confers doctorate on Ratan Tata". Asian Institute of Technology. March 2008.
  27. ^ "Ohio State University confers doctorate of business administration on Ratan Tata". Ohio University. March 2004.
  28. ^ "The FIRST International Award for Responsible Capitalism".
  29. ^ "26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education - Announcement".
  30. ^ "Nasscom gobal leadership awards announced". Business Standard. 12 February 2008. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
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