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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Ratan Naval Tata


BornDecember 28, 1937 (age 72)
Bombay, Bombay Presidency,British India
ResidenceMumbai, Maharashtra, India
NationalityIndian
EthnicityParsi
CitizenshipIndia
Alma materCornell University
Harvard University
OccupationChairman of Tata Group
Home townMumbai, India
ReligionZoroastrianism




Ratan Naval Tata (born December 28, 1937, in Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India) is the present Chairman of Tata Sons and therefore, Tata Group[1], India's largest conglomerate founded by Jamsedji Tata and consolidated and expanded by later generations of his family. 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


Early life

Ratan Tata was born into the famous Tata family, a prominent family belonging to Mumbai's wealthy Parsi community. He was born to Soonoo and Naval Hormusji Tata. Ratan is the great grandson of Tata group founder Jamsedji 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.

Early career

Ratan Tata completed his BSc degree in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975.[2] He joined the Tata Group in December 1962, after turning down a job with IBM on the advice of JRD Tata. He was first sent to Jamshedpur to work at Tata Steel. He worked on the floor along with other blue-collar employees, shoveling limestone and handling the blast furnaces.[3] Ratan Tata, a shy man, rarely features in the society glossies, has lived for years in a book-crammed, dog-filled bachelor flat in Mumbai's Colaba district and is considered to be a gentleman extraordinaire.[4][5]

Career

In 1971, Ratan was appointed the Director-in-Charge of The National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (Nelco), a company that was in dire financial difficulty. Ratan suggested that the company invest in developing high-technology products, rather than in consumer electronics.J.R.D. was reluctant due to the historical financial performance of Nelco which had never even paid regular dividends. Further, Nelco had 2% market share in the consumer electronics market and a loss margin of 40% of sales when Ratan took over. Nonetheless, J. R. D. followed Ratan's suggestions.
From 1972 to 1975, Nelco eventually grew to have a market share of 20%, and recovered its losses. In 1975 however, India's Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi declared a state of emergency, which led to an economic recession. This was followed by union problems in 1977, so even after demand improved, production did not keep up. Finally, the Tatas confronted the unions and, following a strike, a lockout was imposed for seven months. Ratan continued to believe in the fundamental soundness of Nelco, but the venture did not survive.
In 1977, Ratan was entrusted with Empress Mills, a textile mill controlled by the Tatas. When he took charge of the company, it was one of the few sick units in the Tata group. Ratan managed to turn it around and even declared a dividend. However, competition from less labour-intensive enterprises had made a number of companies unviable, including those like the Empress which had large labour contingents and had spent too little on modernisation. On Ratan's insistence, some investment was made, but it did not suffice. As the market for coarse and medium cotton cloth (which was all that the Empress produced) turned adverse, the Empress began to accumulate heavier losses. Bombay House, the Tata headquarters, was unwilling to divert funds from other group companies into an undertaking which would need to be nursed for a long time. So, some Tata directors, chiefly Nani Palkhivala, took the line that the Tatas should liquidate the mill, which was finally closed down in 1986. Ratan was severely disappointed with the decision, and in a later interview with the Hindustan Times would claim that the Empress had needed just Rs 50 lakhs to turn it around.
In 1981, Ratan was named director of Tata Industries, the Group's other holding company, where he became responsible for transforming it into the Group's strategy think-tank and a promoter of new ventures in high-technology businesses.
In 1991, he took over as group chairman from J.R.D. Tata, pushing out the old guard and ushering in younger managers. Since then, he has been instrumental in reshaping the fortunes of the Tata Group, which today has the largest market capitalization of any business house on the Indian Stock Market.
Under Ratan's guidance, Tata Consultancy Services went public and Tata Motors was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1998, Tata Motors introduced his brainchild, the Tata Indica.
On January 31, 2007, under the chairmanship of Ratan Tata, Tata Sons successfully acquired Corus Group, an Anglo-Dutch steel and aluminium producer. With the acquisition, Ratan Tata became a celebrated personality in Indian corporate business culture. The merger created the fifth largest steel producing entity in the world.
On March 26, 2008, Tata Motors, under Ratan Tata, bought Jaguar & Land Rover from Ford Motor Company. The two iconic British brands, Jaguar and Land Rover, were acquired for £1.15 billion ($2.3 billion).
Tata Nano car, 2008
Ratan Tata's dream was to manufacture a car costing Rs 100,000 (1998: approx. US$2,200; today US$2,000 US$2,528). He realized his dream by launching the car in New Delhi Auto Expo on January 10, 2008. Three models of the Tata Nano were announced, and Ratan Tata delivered on his commitment to developing a car costing only 1 lakh rupees, adding that "a promise is a promise," referring to his earlier promise to deliver this car at the said cost. However, the price of the car has since been raised. Recently when his plant for Nano production in Singur, West Bengal, was obstructed by Mamta Banerjee, his decision of going out of the state was warmly welcomed by the Indian corporate media and the English-speaking middle class. Banerjee criticised Ratan Tata for forcing people out of their land in collusion with the Left Front government in the state, which is headed by Budhadeb Bhattacharjee.
On October 7, 2008, after a controversial stay in West Bengal, Ratan Tata and his team shifted their Rs 1-lakh car Nano project to Sanand near Ahmedabad at an investment of Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), declaring that efforts will be made to roll out the world's cheapest car from a make-shift plant to meet the deadline. The Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi granted him huge subsidy for building the facility, including free land. Praising Modi for speedy allocation of about 1,100 acres (4.5 km2) of centrally located land, Ratan Tata said that the company had a great deal of urgency in having a new location and was driven by the reputation of the state.
The car was launched on March 23, 2009, amid much fanfare with advance bookings that preceded its launch by months.

Personal life

Mr. Ratan Tata has a metallic blue Maserati and Ferrari California but prefers to drive himself in an old model Mercedes sedan much like JRD who seldom used a chauffeur and drove his own Fiat to and from work.[6] He sometimes likes to fly his private jet himself. He has an outdatedFalcon Jet, which is no longer used for commercial aviation.[7] He has never been married.[8]
He likes to wear Hermès ties and matching handkerchiefs. [1]
Ratan Tata is largely an employee Chairman / CEO of the group and most his own holding in Tata Sons., the holding company of the group, is a result of inherited family shareholding. His share is or a little less than 1%, valuing his personal holding at approximately US$ 1 Billion, if encashed.[citation needed] About 66% of the equity capital of Tata Sons is held by philanthropic trusts endowed by members of the original Jameshedji family and the largest share is with the Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry family aligned originally to Jamshetji's brother in law. The biggest two of the owning trusts are the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (different Ratan Tata), which were created by the families of the sons of Jamshedji Tata. Ratan Tata is on the board of trustees of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, and is the chairman of the board of trustees of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.[original research?] Ratan Tata is also best known for the face behind changing India's automotive industry into global climate change era.

Quotes

  • "Question the unquestionable"
  • "A promise is a promise" [9]

Awards and 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 programme board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS initiative.[10]
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 of his alma mater, Cornell University.[11][12] He also serves as a board member on the Republic of South Africa's International Investment Council and is an Asia-Pacific advisory committee member for the New York Stock Exchange.
Posted by RANJITH at 12:38 AM

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