Born - 28th of December, 1937 Mumbai, India
Ratan Tata became the Chairman of the Tata Group in 1981 after serving as Chairman in charge of the Nelco division of the group. Tata is India's largest conglomerate and includes the brands Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Power, Indian Hotels, as well as other brands labeled under the Tata name.
Ratan Tata was born on December 28, 1937 in Mumbai, India in one of the richest families in the country. His great grandfather, Jamsedji Tata, was the founder of the Tata group and passed the power and inheritance down to his family. Ratan Tata grew up in a broken household, however, after his parents split in the mid-1940s and he and his brother were raised by their grandmother, Lady Navajbai.
Tata was a good student and studied hard at the Campion School in Mumbai followed by studies in architecture and structural engineering at Cornell University. He graduated with his bachelors degree in 1962 and joined the Tata Group in December of that same year. Tata's first job with the Group involved working with the Tata Steel division where he worked with the blue-collar employees shoveling stone and working with the furnaces.
Although this original job was physically difficult, it helped Ratan Tata gain a better understanding and appreciation for the business and he gradually began taking on more responsibility. In 1971, Tata became Director-in-Charge of the National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (Nelco) in order to help its struggling finances. Ratan Tata helped build a better consumer electronics division but the economic recession and union strikes prevented his vision from taking hold.
Tata was eventually moved to Empress Mills in 1977, a struggling textile mill within the Tata Group. Ratan Tata renewed the vision for the mill but the larger Tata Group was not in agreement with his advice. Instead, the mill was shut down and liquidated in 1986, to Tata's disappointment, and he was moved to the Tata Industries, another holding company.
With Tata Industries, Ratan Tata was able to transform the management and vision of the division and bring in significantly larger dividends. This renewed financial success helped bring the Tata Group to the New York Stock Exchange and gave the company even more international power and prestige. Ratan Tata continued to acquire different industries for the Tata Group, eventually purchasing the steel an aluminum producer, Corus Group as well as Jaguar and Land Rover brands from the Ford Company.
