Tata Sons' board likely to induct new members

Tata Sons is likely to see an expansion of its board as Tata Trusts seeks to strengthen its representation to ensure a better balance between management and shareholder members, officials close to the developments said. Vijay Singh, vice chairman of Tata Trusts, has rejoined the Tata Sons board, with his name being proposed and approved at the last board meeting of the holding company on 11 February that also reappointed N Chandrasekaran as chairman.

Further, Leo Puri chairman of JP Morgan India, South and Southeast Asia, is understood to have been approached by Tata Sons to join the board, officials aware of the development said.

Tata Sons is also keen to ensure more diversity on its board, which oversees a $103 bn conglomerate, with a wide range of businesses, officials say.





Currently, the Tata Sons board has more members from the management side, including the chairman N Chandrasekaran, CFO Sourav Agarwal, Bhaskar Bhat, director Titan and Chairman of Tata SIA Airlines and Ralph Speth former CEO JLR. Venu Srinivasan is the only Trusts nominee while Ajay Piramal and Harish Manwani are independent directors.

Tata Sons did not comment. Leo Puri declined to comment.

Puri, 58, the chairman of JP Morgan, South and Southeast Asia, is a financial sector veteran with over 30 years' experience in consultancy and finance, having worked at McKinsey, Warburg Pincus besides being the CEO of UTI Asset Management .

Tata Trusts and Tata Sons recently passed resolutions raising the age limit of trust nominees on board of Tata Sons from.70 to 75 years. That enabled Vijay Singh to rejoin the board. He had stepped down from the Tata Sons board in 2018 upon reaching 70 years. Noel Tata was recently inducted as a trustee on Dorabji Tata Trust, the second main Trust after the Sir Ratan Tata Trust , where he has been a trustee since 2019.

There have been a lot of speculation around Noel Tata and Tata Steel MD Narendran being possible candidates for the Tata Sons board. Darius J. Khambata, Senior Counsel, who practices in the Supreme Court of India is also one of the names speculated to join Tata Trusts. None of these names could be independently confirmed.