Panel to select chairman in 4 months

Tata Sons has assigned an arduous task of selecting a new chairman on a new selection committee which consists of Ratan N Tata, Venu Srinivasan, Amit Chandra, Ronen Sen and Kumar Bhattacharyya. The committee has been mandated to complete the selection process in four months.

Ratan Tata, who has been appointed as the interim chairman of Tata Sons, was the chairman of Tata Sons from 1991 till 2012-end. 

Kumar Bhattacharyya was born in Dhaka and is the chairman and founder of Warwick Manufacturing Group. He is a past member of the UK Council for Science and Technology. He has also served as a scientific adviser to the government of South Africa and sits on the Policy Advisory Council of the Institute for Public Policy Research and served on the National Consumer Council from 1990 to 1993.

 Venu Srinivasan, chairman, Sundaram-Clayton and TVS Motor Company, was appointed as non-executive director on the board of Tata Sons with effect from August 25, 2016.

Srinivasan has served as the president of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) for the year 2009-10, president of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) from 1999-2001 and chairman of the National Safety Council, Government of India. Srinivasan is also the managing trustee of the Srinivasan Services Trust (SST).  Srinivasan has an engineering degree from the College of Engineering, Chennai, and a master's degree in management from Purdue University.

Amit Chandra has a background of being an investment banking profession and was appointed to the Tata Sons board with effect from August 26, 2016. He joined Bain Capital as a managing director in early 2008. For a part of 2007, Chandra was a partner of NSR Advisors, which advised NSR Private Equity, a $1.3 bn fund focused on the sub-continent.

 Ronen Sen is an independent director on the board of Tata Sons. Sen was India’s ambassador to the United States from 2004 to 2009.

CYRUS MISTRY: PROFILE
*Cyrus Pallonji Mistry was born on July 4, 1968
*Mistry was born to a Parsi family in Mumbai, and studied at the Cathedral & John Connon School
*Mistry is the youngest son of construction tycoon Pallonji Mistry and Patsy Perin Dubash
*His grandfather Shapoorji Pallonji was the financier of ‘Mughal-e-Azam’, the 1960 Indian epic historical drama film directed by K Asif, starring Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and Durga Khote
*Shapoorji Pallonji’s father first bought shares in Tata Sons in the 1930s, a stake that currently stands at 18.4%.
*Mistry graduated from Imperial College, London, with a BSc degree in civil engineering, and went on to graduate as a Master of Science in Management from the London Business School. He is a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers
*Mistry is married to Rohiqa Chagla, the daughter of lawyer Iqbal Chagla, and the granddaughter of eminent jurist M C Chagla
*Mistry took over as Chairman of Tata Sons on December 28, 2012
*Mistry was the sixth chairman of the group, and the second not to be named Tata, after Nowroji Saklatwala
*Mistry was removed as chairman on October 24, 2016

‘Ready to perform role for stability’
Taking over as the interim Chairman of the Tata Sons after the sacking of Cyrus Mistry, Ratan Tata wrote to employees stating he agreed to take up the role of interim Chairman in the interest of stability and reassurance to the group.
In a letter, Tata, 78, said the board of directors of Tata Sons in its meeting on Monday replaced Cyrus P Mistry as Chairman, with immediate effect.
“A new management structure is being put in place and a selection has been constituted to identify the next Chairman of Tata Sons,” he said.
Tata, who became Chairman Emeritus of the group when he retired on December 29, 2012, further said: “The committee has been mandated to complete the process in four months. In the interim, the board has requested me to perform the role of Chairman and I have agree to do so in the interest of stability of and reassurance to the Tata group.”
Before he hung up his boots nearly four years back, Tata had led the salt-to-software conglomerate for 21 years after being chosen successor by his uncle, the iconic JRD Tata, in 1991.