An era in economic history has come to an end with the death of industrialist Ratan Naval Tata, the chairman emeritus of the $100 billion company, at the age of 86. One of India’s most well-known businessmen abroad was Tata.
He was born in 1937 into a traditional Parsi family and attended Cornell University in the United States to study structural engineering and architecture. At the age of 54, Tata assumed the role of group chairman in 1991, coinciding with India’s economic liberalization and abandonment of the protectionist measures of the socialist era. As a result, the long-standing Licence Raj—which mandated that foreign businesses have a native partner—was lifted, paving the way for significant economic changes and international investment in the nation.
