Ratan Tata

Ratan Naval Tata was born in Bombay on 28 December 1937 into a Parsi family. His father, Naval Tata, born in Surat, had been adopted by Ratanji Tata, son of Tata Group founder Jamsetji Tata. His mother was Soonoo (Sooni) Commissariat. His parents separated in 1948, when he was 10, and he was raised by his grandmother Navajbai Tata, the widow of Ratanji Tata. He had a younger brother, Jimmy, a half-brother, Noel, from his father's second marriage to Simone Tata, and two half-sisters, Shireen and Deanna Jejeebhoy, from his mother's second marriage.

Tata attended Campion School in Mumbai until 8th grade, then the Cathedral and John Connon School, and graduated from Riverdale Country School in New York City in 1955. He studied architecture at Cornell University, where he joined the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1962. In 1975 he completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

After Cornell he worked at the architecture firm Jones and Emmons in Los Angeles, returning to India in late 1962 to join the Tata Group on the shop floor of Tata Steel. In the 1970s he turned around National Radio and Electronics (NELCO), which later collapsed in an economic slowdown. In 1991 he succeeded JRD Tata as chairman of Tata Sons and the Tata Group. He consolidated control over subsidiaries with a retirement age, direct reporting to the group office and shared brand building, and exited unrelated businesses. Over 21 years revenue grew more than 40 times and profit more than 50 times. Tata Tea acquired Tetley, Tata Steel acquired Corus and Tata Motors acquired Jaguar Land Rover, and more than 65 percent of revenue came to be earned internationally. He drove the Tata Indica and the Tata Nano. He stepped down on 28 December 2012, returned as interim chairman from 24 October 2016 after Cyrus Mistry's removal, and handed over to Natarajan Chandrasekaran in February 2017. He also served on boards including Alcoa, Mondelez International, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Cornell's trustees, sat on the Pritzker Architecture Prize jury, and invested in more than 40 start-ups.

Tata never married and had no children. In 2011 he said: "I came close to getting married four times and each time I backed off in fear or for one reason or another." He was known for his love of dogs. In June 2024 he appealed on Instagram for blood donors for a critically ill stray dog at his Mumbai animal hospital. In his final years he was often seen with his young assistant and mentee Shantanu Naidu, who wrote a memoir of their friendship.

Tata believed business should give back. Through the Tata trusts he championed education, healthcare, sanitation, rural development and animal welfare, and he backed products such as the Nano that aimed to bring goods within reach of ordinary Indians. He described the move to electric vehicles at Tata Motors as a way to "fast-forward India's electric dream."

Tata is remembered as the leader who turned the Tata Group into a global business while keeping its reputation for ethics and philanthropy. Buildings named for him or his group's trusts stand at Harvard Business School, Cornell Tech and UC San Diego. After the 1984 anti-Sikh riots he helped Sikh truck drivers who had lost their vehicles through donated Tata trucks. His will left a large share of his estate to the Ratan Tata Endowment Foundation and made provision for family, staff and his German Shepherd, Tito. In December 2025 Air India Express registered a new Boeing 737 MAX 8 as VT-RNT in his honour.

Padma Bhushan (2000); Maharashtra Bhushan (2006); Padma Vibhushan (2008); Honorary Citizen of Singapore (2008); Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2009), advanced to Honorary Knight Grand Cross (2014); Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2009); Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan (2012); Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year (2013); Commander of the Legion of Honour (2016); Assam Baibhav (2021); Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia (2023).

An episode of the National Geographic series Mega Icons (2018 to 2020) was devoted to Tata. In 2021 Shantanu Naidu published I Came Upon a Lighthouse: A Short Memoir of Life with Ratan Tata (HarperCollins India).

His succession became a public dispute. Cyrus Mistry, his chosen successor, was removed as chairman of Tata Sons in October 2016 and as a director in February 2017. In December 2019 the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal ruled the removal illegal and ordered his reinstatement, but India's Supreme Court later upheld the dismissal.

Tata was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai in critical condition and placed in intensive care. He died there at about 11:30 pm IST on 9 October 2024, aged 86, of age-related issues. The governments of Maharashtra and Jharkhand announced a day of mourning. On 10 October 2024 he was given a state funeral, with his body wrapped in the Indian flag, a police guard of honour and a gun salute, and his last rites were held at the crematorium in Worli, Mumbai.