Tata, a brand that has instilled a sense of trust and assurance for over 150 years, has always seen a line of succession where those at the top have set the highest standards and ethics in the world of business. His personality cannot be separated from what the brand has evolved into.
Founded in 1868, Tata has become one of the largest and most diverse global conglomerates. This is a name that is heard in almost every household in India and in millions of people abroad.
Ratan Tata, the kind-hearted and gracious gentleman-industrialist and philanthropist who is credited with taking brand Tata to more than 100 countries under his leadership, died in a Mumbai hospital earlier this week. His leadership of the Tata giant has left a void that very few can fill, or not – only time will tell.
Ratan Tata is being replaced by his step brother Noel Tata. When Ratan Tata and his younger brother Jimmy were very young, their parents – Naval Tata and Sunu Commissariat – divorced. Years later his father remarried Simone Dunoyer and they had a son, Noel.
Ratan Tata and his half-brother Noel Tata with their father Naval Tata. Noel Tata is 20 years younger than Ratan Tata. (Photo: Facebook/WelcometoJamshedpur)
Tata family genealogy
The ancestors of the Tata family came to India from Persia, now Iran, in the 8th century AD. They were part of a larger group of Parsis (people of Persia), a Zoroastrian ethnic community who fled persecution during the Islamic conquest of Persia.
According to the Tata Central Archives, the Tatas settled in Navsari in Gujarat and lived there for 25 generations, before business took them to Bombay – then the Bombay Presidency under the British Raj. At that time the Bombay province included the western two-thirds of Maharashtra, north-western Karnataka, the whole of Gujarat, the whole of Sindh (now in Pakistan) and Aden (now in Yemen).
The Tata family’s business journey began with Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, who opened a trading company in Bombay in 1868, which has become the Tata Group today. Tata has always believed in the concept of country and society – building and uplifting people and community above personal gain – and from the very beginning, Jamsetji and his two sons – Sir Dorabji Tata and Sir Ratan Tata – left much of their work Assets and shares in the company to charitable trusts.
The Tata family came to India from Persia in the 8th century and settled in Gujarat. Jamsetji Tata founded the business in 1868.
Today, there are 14 separate trusts run by Tata that operate in different sectors, each of which is independent from each other in the nature and scope of its work. However, all of them come under an umbrella organization called Tata Trusts. Ratan Tata was the Chairman of the Tata Trust and Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Group. Following his death, his half-brother Noel Tata has become the chairman of Tata Trusts while Natarajan Chandrasekaran is the chairman of Tata Group, whose largest stakeholder is Tata Trusts.
Noel Tata – New Chairman – Tata Trust
Born in December 1957, Noel Tata is twenty years younger than his half-brother Ratan Tata. He is the son of Naval Tata and Simone Dunoyer, a French-Swiss Catholic and Swiss businesswoman.
Noel Tata holds a degree from the University of Sussex (UK) and completed the International Executive Program (IEP) at INSEAD. He is an Indian-Irish businessman and has been appointed as the Chairman of Tata Trusts. He is married to Aloo Mistry, sister of Cyrus Mistry and granddaughter of Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry. They have three children – Neville, Maya and Leah – all of whom are actively involved in the Tata Group. Leah is the Vice President at Tata Indian Hotels Company. While Maya Tata is from Tata Capital, Neville is part of the Trent and leadership team at Tata Star Bazaar.
Prior to this new appointment, Noel Tata’s most prominent role was as Managing Director of Tata International Limited, the group’s trading and distribution arm. Under his leadership from 2010 to 2021, the company’s turnover increased from $500 million to more than $3 billion. As managing director of Tata’s retail arm, Trent Limited, he expanded its operations from a single store in 1998 to over 700 stores in various formats.
Until his appointment as Chairman of Tata Trusts, Noel was the Chairman of Tata Trent, Tata International Limited, Voltas and Tata Investment Corporation. He is also the Vice Chairman of Tata Steel and Titan Company Limited. He also serves as a trustee on the boards of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, which includes over 50 percent ownership of Tata Sons.
Noel Tata has now become the sixth chairman of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and the 11th chairman of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.
