Ratan's interventions ensured Tata came out strong into the 2000s

THE FIRST BRAND custodian of Tata Group, Mukund Rajan served on the board of various Tata companies.

- NACHIKET KELKAR

He joined the group in 1995 and closely worked with successive group chairmen before leaving in 2018 to become an entrepreneur. Excerpts from an interaction:

Q/ When Ratan Tata took charge, there were a lot of concerns about how he could fit into the shoes of J.R.D. Tata. But he succeeded in many ways. How did he do it?

A/ Establishing himself as a rightful successor to J.R.D. Tata, probably, was achieved by the end of the 1990s. And that’s the time also when his board, which he inherited from J.R.D. and which had many octogenarians on it, agreed to accept a new retirement policy. And one by one, they all stepped down. Famous names like Nani Palkhivala, F.C. Kohli, Shahrukh Sabhawala, A.H. Tobaccowala, all of those people started stepping down from the board of Tata Sons. It was a kind of reflection of the fact that they felt that their time was up, their duty to J.R.D. and Tata was over, and that Ratan Tata had proven to be an effective leader.

There were several major interventions that ensured Tata came out into the 2000s looking like a strong group. One was this whole idea of unification. Ratan Tata felt that individual companies had gone too far out in their own independent direction. There was a sense that some of these companies were doing their own thing without reference to the group centre. There wasn’t a sense of united purpose or a joint commitment that everyone bought into with a common vision of the future.