Mr. Social of Indian soil

INTRODUCTION

Today is the birth anniversary of Ratan Tata who is Indian industrialist, philanthropist, and former chairperson of TATA Sons. He didn't play only a great contribution in progress of TATA Sons, but he has contribution for development of India. He could be a richest of India easily but it couldn't happen because of philanthropy, he always donated huge amount of money for charity, hospitality, needy people by which many persons got benefit. He is really humble, inspirational, kind-hearted man and on the occasion of his birthday let's read about him.

BACKGROUND

Ratan Tata was born in Mumbai on 28th December in 1937, son of Naval Tata who was born in Surat and later adopted into Tata family, and Sooni Tata, niece of Tata group founder, Jamshedji Tata. Ratan Tata's biological grandfather Hormusji Tata, was a member of Tata family by blood. In 1948, when he was 10 years old his parents separated and raised by his grandmother Navajbai Tata, he has younger brother Jimmy Tata, half-brother Noel Tata from Naval Tata's second marriage.

Ratan Tata studied at the Companion School, Mumbai till 8th standard then Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai, Bishop Cotton School, Shimla and Riverdale County School, New York where he completed school's education. After completion of school's education he enrolled Cornell University from which he graduated in Architecture (BArch) in 1959 and got the job in IBM but JRD Tata convinced him to join family business.

CAREER

In 1962, he joined Tata industry and was given a managerial position. He achieved initial success by turning the subsidiary National Radio and Electonics (NELCO) around, only to see it collapse during economics slowdown. In 1991, JRD Tata stepped down as chairperson of Tata Sons, declared him as his successor. Initially, he faced stiff resistance from heads of various subsidiaries, who had large amount of operational freedom under Tata's tenure. In response, Ratan Tata implemented a no. of policies designed to consolidate powers, including implementation of retirement age, having subsidiaries report directly to the group office and requiring subsidiaries to contribute their profit for building Tata group brand. He prioritized innovation and delegated many responsibilities to younger talent. Under his leadership, overlapping the operation between subsidiaries were streamlined into company-wide operations, with the group exiting unrelated business to take on globalization.

During 21(1991-2012) years he led Tata group, revenue grew over 40 times and profit grew over 50 times. When he took over the company, sales overwhelmingly comprised commodity sales but at the end of his tenure, the majority of sales came from brand. He had Tata tea acquire Tetley, Tata Motors acquire Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel acquire Corus. These acquisitions repositioned Tata group a largely India-centric group into a globe business, with over 65% of revenue coming from sales and operations internationally.

PHILANTHROPY

Ratan Tata is big supporter of education, medicine and rural development and considered a leading philanthropist in India.

In 2008, he gifted Cornell $50 million, becoming largest international donor in university's history.