Tata group names successor to iconic boss

India’s Tata group named a successor yesterday to its veteran chairman and business icon Ratan Tata, bucking tradition by appointing a non-family member for the first time in its 143-year history. Cyrus P Mistry, an existing director, was promoted to take over at the end of 2012, ending years of speculation over the future leader of one of India’s biggest and most influential groups with interests from steel to salt. Ratan Tata, a bachelor with no children, took over the family business Tata Sons in 1991 and is credited with building it into an international behemoth with worldwide sales totalling $83.3bn.The softly-spoken leading industrialist, 73, had announced he would retire by December 2012 leading to a global search for a new leader in which his half-brother Noel was tipped as a leading contender. The chairman said yesterday that the appointment of Mistry, a 43-year-old with five years experience in Tata who is distantly related to the boss by marriage, was “good and far-sighted choice”. “He has been on the board of Tata Sons since August 2006 and I have been impressed with the quality and calibre of his participation, his astute observations and his humility,” he added. “I will be committed to working with him over the next year to give him the exposure, the involvement and the operating experience to equip him to undertake the full responsibility of the group on my retirement.” Ratan Tata, a trained architect and leading public figure in the minority Parsi religious group in India, had previously stipulated only that his successor must uphold the company’s tradition of corporate responsibility. Mistry, who will initially become deputy chairman and take over the top job only after Tata retires next year, said in a separate emailed statement that he was “deeply honoured” to be chosen. He said he was “aware that an enormous responsibility, with a great legacy, has been entrusted to me”. The Tata group was founded by Ratan Tata’s great-great-grandfather Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata in 1868 and has developed into one of India’s most well-known and trusted brands. Mistry is currently the managing director of the real estate-to-energy Shapoorji Pallonji Group, which has an 18% stake in the Tata conglomerate and a long association with the conglomerate. He has been a director at Tata Sons for more than five years and is a civil engineering graduate from Imperial College, London, with a master’s degree in management from the London Business School. His sister is married to Ratan Tata’s younger half-brother Noel.