Sunanda K. Datta-Ray | Tata at Crossroads: Noel or Still Chandrasekaran?

Uncertainty about the next head of India’s biggest conglomerate company recalls the Bombay House joke about a young Parsi looking to make a fortune in Mumbai. He wasn’t at all downcast when all that he could land was a liftman’s job. “Life is full of ups and downs!” was his philosophical explanation to his grand Parsi relatives, the Sodawaterbottleopenerwallahs of Malabar Hill.

That was one of the work-related names that Zoroastrians adopted after being evicted from Iran and settling down in Navsari in Gujarat. Legend says Tata was another, possibly acquired after seeing off their cargo boats at the Surat docks with prolonged goodbyes (Ta-tas). But the French-born Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, chairman from 1938 to 1991 of the $280-billion Tata group, could not have been more nonchalant when told that the important London newspaper, The Observer, was planning a cover story for its weekend colour magazine on the House of Tata. JRD shrugged off the honour with a self-deprecating, “We are not even on the Fortune 500 list!”

Quietly sitting in on the interview, the childless tycoon’s distant cousin and designated heir, Ratan, a bachelor also without direct heirs, might not have been so cavalier. In fact, people may not have been at all surprised if Ratan had abided by the old maxim that “blood is thicker than water”. After all, they would say, the poor boy came from a broken home, being only 10 when his parents ended a rocky marriage. His only full sibling, Jimmy, is something of a recluse living quietly in a modest two-bedroom apartment in Mumbai’s Colaba.

In 1955, Ratan’s father, Naval Tata, remarried a Swiss businesswoman and fashion expert, Simone Dunoyer. They had one son, Noel, who was not brought up with his older half-brother but who strengthened the influential Parsi connection by marrying Aloo Mistry, daughter of Pallonji Mistry, whose Shapoorji Pallonji group of architects and builders is Tata’s largest minority shareholder with an 18 per cent stake.

Aloo’s brother, Cyrus Mistry, the chosen next chairman, was ousted in a boardroom coup by Ratan who retired as chairman of Tata Sons in 2012 but remained head of the trusts with a controlling 66% share in the group. Ratan replaced him with Chandrasekaran, who ran the highly profitable Tata Consultancy Services software business, again sidelining Noel. Cyrus died later in a 2022 car crash.

It was said in Mumbai that Ratan never quite accepted his stepmother or half-brother. When the mantle of leadership descended on his shoulders on JRD’s demise in 1991, Ratan looked beyond family and firm to proven professional excellence. Some say that this need not have ruled out Noel, who had done well as chairman of the trusts controlling the group. Noel also turned Tata’s Trent retail business into a success against strong competition, earning $2bn in revenue and developed Tata’s international trading company. However, Ratan still felt that Noel had “not had the experience of handling difficult assignments.”

He found Natarajan Chandrasekaran who had joined Tata Consultancy Services in 1987 and moved in 2016 to the holding company Tata Sons’ board before becoming its chairman. The public betting was on Noel when Mr Chandrasekaran’s unexpected announcement that he would not seek a third five-year term as Tata Sons executive chairman heralded an approaching climax of conflicts and clashes within the family’s top echelons.

Noel Tata is set now to gain full control when Mr Chandrasekaran quits at the end of his current five-year term next February. He probably feels it’s a position he should automatically have inherited when Ratan Tata retired as chairman in 2012 of a conglomerate running companies ranging from salt to software and Jaguar cars and hotels to aviation and defence.

Mr Chandrasekaran has had some setbacks, notably trouble-prone Air India, whose losses more than doubled to nearly $3bn in 2025-26. The airline’s reputation was hit by a fatal crash last year and by a pilot losing control of an aircraft for four seconds earlier this month. All this is compounded by the West Asian war, rising fuel costs and Donald Trump’s whims and vagaries.

Tata bought Air India from the government in 2022. Ratan may have had some influence on the decision which was commercially a disaster, but helped the government because there were no other buyers and was a homecoming of sorts for the group that founded the airline in 1932 and lost it to nationalisation in 1953.

There were splits among trustees throughout last year over appointments and governance issues. Mr Chandrasekaran and Noel met Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman, while Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s intercession also proved helpful. The two main trusts also proposed a third term for Mr Chandrasekaran but this was questioned at a Tata Sons board meeting in February by an unnamed board member. Mr Chandrasekaran’s $120bn five-year expansion plan for the group has also prompted questions.

Mr Chandrasekaran says in his resignation statement that he is stepping down because a third term “was not carried through because one of the Board members did not support it”. If the absence of unanimous support is the sticking point, it can always be removed either at Tata Sons’ August 18 annual general meeting or informally at any time.

India has a tradition of public personalities eventually agreeing to take on responsibilities that they had initially refused. Even Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President, had to be “persuaded” to accept the presidentship. There is no reason why Mr Chandrasekaran should not similarly allow himself to be “persuaded”.

Unlike the bachelor Ratan, Noel has a 32-year-old son Neville, and two daughters, Leah and Maya. All three are employed in different branches of the group. His future in the company is secure if only he can get over the present hurdle.