Ratan Tata on Alcoa board

MUMBAI: Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons, has been appointed a director in the board of the US-based Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminium producer. “Ratan’s global business acumen and his depth of knowledge about quality and customer satisfaction will make him a valuable addition to our board of directors,” said Alcoa chairman and CEO Alain Belda in a company announcement on Thursday evening.

There are now 11 directors on Alcoa’s board. Mr Tata, 69 is also a director of Fiat S.p.A and serves on the international advisory boards of Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group and JP Morgan Chase. He is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee to the New York Stock Exchange and chairs the advisory board of RAND’s Center for Asia Pacific Policy.

He is also a part of Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS and the program board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s India AIDS initiative. In India, Mr Tata is chairman of the Government’s Investment Commission.

Mr Tata, who led the Group company Tata Steel’s $ 12.1b deal to acquire Corus last month, holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Cornell University and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975.

Alcoa, which reported revenues of $ 30b in 2006, is the world’s leading producer and manager of primary aluminium. The company has 123,000 employees in 44 countries.