| Ratan Naval Tata | |
|---|---|
| Born | 28 December 1937 Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India |
| Residence | Colaba, Mumbai, India[1] |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Ethnicity | Parsi |
| Alma mater | Cornell University Harvard University |
| Occupation | Chairman of Tata Group |
| Years active | 1962-present |
| Spouse | unmarried |
| Awards | Padma Bhushan (2000) Padma Vibhushan (2008) KBE (2009) |
Ratan Naval Tata (born 28 December 1937) (Gujarati: રતન નવલ ટાટા) is the present chairman of Tata Sons and therefore, Tata Group.[2] He is also the chairman of major Tata companies such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Tea, Tata Chemicals, The Indian Hotels Company and Tata Teleservices.
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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 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 criticized the move, saying that Tata Group had overpaid for Corus and had prioritized national pride before its shareholders.[4]
Tata is set to retire in December 2012 to be succeeded by Cyrus Mistry, the 42-year-old son of Pallonji Mistry and managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group.[5]
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.[6]
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.[7][8] 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.
| Year | Name | Awarding organization | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Honorary Doctor of Laws | Pepperdine University. | [9] |
| 2010 | Legend in Leadership Award | Yale University. | [10] |
| 2010 | Businessman of the Decade | Federation of Indo-Israel Chambers of Commerce. | [11] |
| 2008 | Honorary Doctor of Science | Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. | [12] |
| 2008 | Honorary Doctor of Law | University of Cambridge. | [13] |
| 2007 | Honorary Fellow | London School of Economics. | [14] |
| 2007 | Honorary Citizen of Singapore | Singapore government. | |
| 2007 | Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. | [15] |
| 2005 | Honorary Doctor of Science | University of Warwick. | [16] |
| 2004 | Honorary Degree of Doctor of Technology | Asian Institute of Technology. | [17] |
| 2004 | Honorary Economic Advisor | Hangzhou, China. | [17] |
| 2001 | Honorary Doctor of Business Administration | Ohio State University. | [18] |
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