Industrialist
NAME – Ratan Tata
PROFESSION- Industrialist
BORN – 28/12/1937
PLACE OF BIRTH – Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British-India
FATHER’S NAME – Naval Tata
MOTHER’S NAME – Sooni Tata
SPOUSE – N/A
SIBLINGS – Noel Tata
CHILDREN – 1
EDUCATION –
Schooling- Campion School, Mumbai
Schooling- Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai
Schooling- Bishop Cotton School, Shimla
Higher Education- Riverdale Country School, New York City
B. Arch- Cornell University
Advanced Management Program- Harvard Business School
COMPANIES – 1. National Radio and Electronics
2. Tata Sons
3. Tata Group
AWARDS –
2000- Padma Bhushan
2008- Padma Vibhushan
BACKGROUND – Ratan Tata is a prominent Indian figure known for being a philanthropist, and the former chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group.
Ratan Tata’s biological maternal grandmother was the sister of the wife of the founder of the Tata Group, Jamshedji Tata. He was adopted by his grandmother, Navajbai Tata from the J. N. Petit Parsi Orphanage.
He implemented many changes and became very influential due to the power he held after becoming the chairman of two business giants, Tata Sons and Tata Group.
CAREER TIMELINE –
1961- Joined work on the shop floor of Tata Steel
1970s- started work in the group company named- National Radio and Electronics
1991- Became the chairman of Tata Sons.
2000- Tata group acquired Tetley Tea
2004- The group purchased Daewoo Motors
2007- Completed the biggest corporate takeover after acquiring Corus Group
2008- Tata Motor’s purchased Jaguar and Land Rover.
2009- Launched Tata Nano
2012- Retired as the chairman and succussed by Cyrus Mistry.
2016- Stepped in as Interim chairperson because of the removal of Mistry.
2017- Stepped down once Natarajan Chandrasekaran was appointed.
CONTROVERSIES/CASES-
Tata Tapes Controversy- The controversy took place in the late 1990s when the newspaper “The Indian Express” published transcripts of a telephone conversation between businessman Nusli Wadia and chairman Ratan Tata and other politicians. The conversation was regarding the problems faced by Tata Tea with the then Assam Government.
The company led by Ratan Tata was accused of being a terror to the United Liberation Front of Assam and the conversation allegedly showed that Tata was trying to get the union government involved to sort the dispute. The controversy died down soon with the government getting dissolved in a few months.
Tata Nano- In the year 2006, Ratan Tata announced the production of Tata Nano to start in Singpur, West Bengal. Local farmers protested the acquisition of the land there and Mamata Banerjee joined their protests against the then chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.
To calm them down the state government decided to improve their compensation packages but Ratan Tata then announced shifting the production factory to Gujarat.