Ratan N Tata was the Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata group, from 1991 till his retirement on December 28, 2012. He was also chairman of the major Tata companies, including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Chemicals, Indian Hotels and Tata Teleservices. During his tenure, the group’s revenues grew manifold, totalling over $100 billion in 2011-12.
Mr Tata is also associated with various organisations in India and overseas. He is the chairman of two of the largest private-sector-promoted philanthropic trusts in India. He is a member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry. He is the president of the Court of the Indian Institute of Science and chairman of the Council of Management of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He also serves on the board of trustees of Cornell University and the University of Southern California. Mr Tata serves on the board of directors of Alcoa, and is also on the international advisory boards of Mitsubishi Corporation, JP Morgan Chase, Rolls-Royce, Temasek Holdings and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Mr Tata received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell in 1962. He worked briefly with Jones and Emmons in Los Angeles before returning to India in late 1962. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975.
The Government of India honoured Mr Tata with its second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2008. He has also received honorary doctorates from several universities in India and overseas.
Quotes of Ratan Tata :
1. What I would like to do is to leave behind a sustainable entity of a set of companies that operate in an exemplary manner in terms of ethics, values and continue what our ancestors left behind.
2. Power and wealth are not two of my main stakes.
3. I may have hurt some people along the way, but I would like to be seen as somebody who has done his best to do the right thing for any situation and not compromised.
4. I have two or three cars that I like, but today, Ferrari would be the best car I have driven in terms of being an impressive car.
5. I have been constantly telling people to encourage people, to question the unquestioned and not to be ashamed to bring up new ideas, new processes to get things done.
6. Apart from values and ethics which I have tried to live by, the legacy I would like to leave behind is a very simple one – that I have always stood up for what I consider to be the right thing, and I have tried to be as fair and equitable as I could be.
7. I have been constantly telling people to encourage people, to question the unquestioned and not to be ashamed to bring up new ideas, new processes to get things done.
8. I have always been very confident and very upbeat about the future potential of India. I think it is a great country with great potential.
9. If it stands the test of public scrutiny, do it… if it doesn’t stand the test of public scrutiny then don’t do it.
10. There are many things that, if I have to relive, maybe I will do it another way. But I would not like to look back and think what I have not been able to
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