Tata Sons reappoints Chandrasekaran as chairman for five years

Tata Sons Reappoints Chandrasekaran as Chairman for Five Years

Natarajan Chandrasekaran will continue to helm the $103 billion Tata Group after his reappointment was approved by the board of Tata Sons Pvt., the main holding firm of India's biggest conglomerate.

Chandrasekaran, who was first appointed chairman of Tata Sons in 2017, will have a second term of five years, according to a statement Friday.

The continuity in leadership comes as the 154-year-old conglomerate that makes salt to luxury sedans, is working on an all-in-one ecommerce superapp - one of Chandrasekaran's key projects - to market its swathe of consumer products and services as part of a digital makeover. The group is also reinventing its aviation businesses after successfully acquiring Air India Ltd. from the federal government last year.

In his year-end communication to Tata employees, Chandrasekaran identified digital, new energy, supply chain resilience and health as the themes group would focus on in the future. "Our new pilots and businesses, from 5G to TataNeu and Tata Electronics, are poised to benefit from these four themes going forward," he said.

Chandrasekar an first took over as Tata Sons chairman in February 2017, months after the company ousted his predecessor Cyrus P. Mistry in a shock boardroom coup led by Ratan Tata, who heads Tata Trusts - a bunch of philanthropic organizations that hold 66% stake in Tata Sons. The ouster triggered a years-long legal battle between the two sides and was finally put to bed after India's top court ruled in March 2021 that Mistry's dismissal was legal.

The next big question for the group is who will succeed Ratan Tata as the head of Tata Trusts - a position that exerts immense control over how Tata Sons and by implication, how the broader group is run. There has been no official announcement on that front.

With 100-odd businesses and 29 listed firms, the Tata group had combined revenue of about $103 billion for the year ended March 31, 2021. Its 800,000-plus employees help the conglomerate make cars and trucks, blend tea, manufacture salt, forge steel, sell insurance, write software, operate airlines and phone networks, among much else.