Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata today said that his successor would neither be pro-Parsi nor anti-Parsi but should be the right person.
"The Tata Group is an Indian group and we should not be looking (at it) as a Parsi group. The successor should be the right person and anti-Parsi or pro-Parsi," he told shareholders at Tata Chemicals’ annual general meeting (AGM) in Mumbai.
The market was rife with speculation that the Tata Group’s successor will be from among the Parsi community. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, who was born into a Parsi family, formed the Tata Group in the early years of the last century.
The $71-billion group has embarked on a global search for a successor to Ratan Tata, who turns 75 in December 2012. The conglomerate has an official policy of retirement at 75.
Ratan Tata has been the chairman of the group for almost 20 years now.
Last week, Tata Sons had said its board had fomed formed a selection committee comprising five members, including an external member, "to decide on a suitable successor".
The committee would look at candidates both within the organisation and outside.
The five-member search panel includes a former Tata Sons vice chairman NA Soonawala and two senior group directors RK Krishnakumar and Cyrus Mistry, and group adviser and lawyer Shirin Bharucha and influential British businessma Lord Bhattacharya.
Type your comment here…Ratan Tata and the leadership of Tata Group is right in selecting the right Indian for the top post irrespective of race, religion or colour, whether Parsi or non Parsi. Parsis will be exretemely wrong in thinking that only a Parsi must be the head—-that is nonsense. A lot of Indians from every community and religion and ethnicity have participated in the growth of Tatas what it is today. So I will agree that a right Indian must head the group, after al Tatas is no longer a Parsi company but an Indian company. My only regret was that Mumbai airport was named after Shivaji Maharaj rather it should have been called JRD Tata International airport. That was a stupidity of the whole Maharashtrian community & their leaders to enforce such a name when the whole world and the Maharashtrian community’s conscience knows that JRD was a pioneer of Indian aviation.That blunder I feel must be reversed at all cost and must be renamed
Type your comment here…Ratan Tata and the leadership of Tata Group is right in selecting the right Indian for the top post irrespective of race, religion or colour, whether Parsi or non Parsi. Parsis will be exretemely wrong in thinking that only a Parsi must be the head—-that is nonsense. A lot of Indians from every community and religion and ethnicity have participated in the growth of Tatas what it is today. So I will agree that a right Indian must head the group, after al Tatas is no longer a Parsi company but an Indian company. My only regret was that Mumbai airport was named after Shivaji Maharaj rather it should have been called JRD Tata International airport. That was a stupidity of the whole Maharashtrian community & their leaders to enforce such a name when the whole world and the Maharashtrian community’s conscience knows that JRD was a pioneer of Indian aviation.That blunder I feel must be reversed at all cost and must be renamed