For more than 20 years, the tycoon oversaw the Tata Group, a conglomerate of over 100 companies that employed over 660,000 people. The group is renowned as a “salt-to-software” conglomerate. It brings in more than $100 billion (£76.5 billion) a year.
The 155-year-old Tata Group was founded by Indian business pioneer Jamsetji Tata and spans a variety of industries, including aircraft, salt pans, Jaguar Land Rover, and Tata Steel.
According to Peter Casey, the author of The Story of Tata, an official book on the company, the company’s credo “yokes capitalism to philanthropy, by doing business in ways that make the lives of others better”.
He details the “number of companies that includes privately held and publicly traded companies, yet they are in essence all owned by a philanthropic trust” that make up Tata Sons, the group’s holding company.
Born in 1937, Ratan Tata came from a typical Parsi family. The Parsis are a well-educated and affluent group who trace their origins to Zoroastrian immigrants who fled India. 1940s saw the separation of his parents.
