Ratan Tata is still alive and inspiring millions people through his effort towards Indian industry.

Ratan Tata: A Visionary Leader

He was born on 28 December 1937. He is the member of one of the most popular industrialist families of India-the Tata family. The direct descendant of Jamshed ji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group. His parents divorced him and his brother when he was a mere 10 years old. He and his brother had to stay with their grandmother, Lady Navajbai Tata.

Ratan Tata who gave a prominent image for India, had his schooling at the Campion School in Mumbai. after that he completed his education at Cathedral and John Connon School. Ratan Tata took post graduation abroad where he obtained an architecture degree from Cornell University in 1962. In 1975 he joined Harvard Business School for the Advanced Management Program.

Career with Tata Group 

Ratan Tata joined Tata Group in 1961, when he began working on the shop floor of Tata Steel, shoveling limestone and watching the blast furnace. It is this grassroot view of the business that has given him a strong grounding from the bottom up. In addition, he climbed the career ladder to emerge as Chairman of Tata Sons, Tata Group’s holding company in 1991, to replace J.R.D. Tata.

He has converted an Indian house into a world leader. He made many mega acquisitions that stretched the Tata footprint across the globe and some examples of this are:

Tetley (2000) Acquired by Tata Tea that made Tata the world’s second largest tea company

Jaguar Land Rover (2008) Acquired by Tata Motors for the first major step into the automobile industry at the global level.

This strategic acquisition and expansion by Tata Group helped reach many regional and global heights as Tata Steel’s takeover of Corus Group made Tata Steel the world’s biggest producer.

Social Impact Through Philanthropy

 Ratan Tata never thought that a business can do anything better than have an impact on the society it operates in. As a philanthropist, Ratan Tata was engaged in more charity acts with help from the Tata Trusts that own two-thirds equity in Tata Sons. The trusts through philanthropy address the causes: rural development, education, health, and environmental sustainability.

Especially worth funding is the research work in the education and health sectors mainly Ratan Tata. He has been a catalyst for such institutes like IIT Bombay, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), and world universities like Cornell and Harvard.

Humility, Integrity and Innovation

  He has always mixed his traditional business with a forward-looking approach while leading companies into a new era of post liberalization. His ethical leadership has been something special. Unlike most business leaders, he maintained focus on long-term positive impact on society versus those short-term benefits that any businessman enjoys.

One of them probably is the most famous of them all: one of the biggest projects: Tata Nano, one of the affordable low-cost cars towards making personal transport available to millions of people in India. Not very commercial in approach, it was kind of symbolic of the innovative way Ratan Tata handled socio-challenges with business solutions.

Honors and Awards 

Ratan Tata has received many honors and awards throughout his lifetime from life in India and elsewhere, including the following:

Padma Bhushan 2000-India’s third highest civilian honor

Padma Vibhushan 2008-India’s second highest civilian honor

Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire 2014, for services to deepen and enhance Indo-British economic relations.

Apart from that, he received several honorary doctorates from some of the world’s greatest institutions. Like University of Cambridge, Warwick University, and Cornell University, amongst many more.

After Retirement and Continuing to Influence

Ratan Tata retired in 2012 as the Chairman of Tata Sons after passing his torch to Cyrus Mistry. Technically, he has gotten out of the day-to-day management but the Indian business world still looks up to Ratan Tata as the influential voice.

Apart from being a businessman, Ratan Tata was much more vocal as an advocate of Indian start-ups and entrepreneurs. He has invested in several start-ups that are primarily e-commerce and technology-based ventures. For example Paytm and Ola, along with UrbanClap, which further fuels the ever-growing start-up ecosystem in India.

Conclusion 

Ratan Tata’s legacy is epitomized in terms of vision in leadership, expansion at a global level, and a person having social responsibility. Tata Group is now a global brand in the world. It has also kept intact its vital values of ethics in leadership and philanthropy while giving momentum to the cause. A Colossal Figure Beyond Business Ratan Tata was one of the responsible leaders in the present business world. He was indeed a colossal figure beyond business.

Millions will be inspired by him today and due to his massive impact on business, society, and on leadership.