The world of business lost these eminent people in 2024

The year 2024 saw the demise of one of India's biggest corporate leaders, Ratan Tata, and several other well-known persons related to the world of business and economy. Below are some of the eminent personalities we mourned in 2024.

Ratan Tata
India bid adieu to its top industrialist who was responsible for transforming a company worth just $4 billion when he took over and was worth $77 billion when he retired from active corporate leadership in 2012 and is now worth $400 billion, with 26 Tata-related companies employing a million people listed on the Indian stock exchange in October. India’s growth story was seen as synonymous with that of Ratan Tata, who inherited one of India’s oldest conglomerates and transformed it through a string of eye-catching deals.


The industrialist helped in making the group name ‘Tata’ ubiquitous in India. People see it on the packet of tea that wakes them up in the morning, on the buses that carry them to work, and in the hotels where they go for a drink after work. No other name is as representative of the possibilities, and failures, of the nation’s private sector — and so when the group’s patriarch Ratan Tata died in Mumbai in October 2024, Indians and India Inc alike mourned the death. His passing leaves a vacuum at the powerful Tata Trusts, a collective of charities that Tata led since stepping down as group chairman in 2012 and in the business sphere. Tata was “a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation,” N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group, had said.

Through more than two dozen listed firms, the 156-year-old Tata Group makes products ranging from coffee and cars to salt and software, runs airlines, and introduced India’s first superapp. Under Ratan Tata’s stewardship, the conglomerate embarked on an expansion drive that turned the tables on India’s colonial past. It snapped up iconic British assets including steelmaker Corus Group Plc. in 2007 and luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover in 2008.

Narayanan Vaghul
The veteran banker, Narayanan Vaghul, who sowed the seeds of financial supermarket ICICI Group and was instrumental in familiarizing India with modern banking, passed away at the age of 88 in May. For his contribution, the banking doyen was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2009 in the Trade and Industry category. An instrumental figure in setting up ICICI Securities, rating company Crisil Ltd, and venture fund ICICI Ventures, Vaghul started at the State Bank of India as an officer in the city then called Madras but soon resigned and took a teaching position at the National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), where he became a director. In 1978, he joined the Central Bank of India as executive director, and in 1981, he was appointed CMD of the Bank of India. At 44, he was credited with being the youngest CMD of a nationalized bank.

Vaghul had served ICICI Bank - which is now the second-largest private lender - for 24 years, first as chairman and MD for 10 years, and later as chairman. He turned a staid term-lending institution into a vibrant financial powerhouse with interests ranging from stock broking to lending to infrastructure, with insurance and advisory rolled into the mix. He handed over the charge in May 1996 to K V Kamath.

Ramoji Rao
Responsible for putting the Tollywood industry onto the global map, media tycoon Cherukuri Ramoji Rao passed away in May of this year, leaving a gap in the industry. Baahubali, RRR, and other blockbusters which became hits not just across India but globally, were shot at the world’s largest film production facility, Ramoji Film City, that was headed by him. Apart from owning a world-class shooting facility, he was a seasoned entrepreneur with business ventures in multiple sectors such as media, hospitality, NBFC and food and retail store chains. His ventures, including the Eenadu newspaper, ETV network of channels, the world's largest film studio Ramoji Film City, Dolphin group of hotels, Margadarsi Chit Fund, Ushakiran Movies production company, Priya Foods, and others, have created thousands of jobs and continue to positively impact millions of lives in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

He was given full state honors by the Andhra Pradesh government and was earlier awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award in India, by then-President Pranab Mukherjee.

Bibek Debroy
From shaping several policies to being a key economic adviser to the Prime Minister, Bibek Debroy passed away in November 2024. He was 69. An empirical economist and a Padma Shri awardee, Debroy was the chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council since September 2017.

He worked on trade issues in the 1980s and law reform in the following decade. He was also a full-time member of NITI Aayog from its constitution in 2015 until June 2019. In 2016, Debroy led the committee that recommended merging the Rail Budget with the Union Budget, a change that took effect in 2017-18. Besides economic issues, his work included authoring and editing several religious books, including translations of the Puranas, the four Vedas, and 11 major Upanishads, as well as the Valmiki Ramayana and the Mahabharata. .

Amiya Kumar Bagchi
Emeritus professor, economic historian, and founder director of the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK), Amiya Kumar Bagchi passed away at 88 in December. In 2005, he was honoured with India’s fourth-highest civilian award, Padma Shri.

Bagchi started his career teaching at Presidency College soon after his Masters. In 1963, he was awarded the PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge. Along with professor Tapas Majumdar, he was instrumental in starting the Centre for Economic Studies, which incubated generations of bright economists who served the academy and government with distinction. He joined the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, in 1974 and later became the RBI professor and also the director. Initially a mathematical economist and game theorist, Bagchi turned to economic history for his doctoral dissertation, a decision that marked his future path. His works include ‘Private Investment in India (1900-1939)’ where he compared anti-colonial historians like Naoroji and Dutt. It explored the dynamics of investment during colonial India and deindustrialization in colonial India that provided decisive evidence in a long-standing debate on the impact of colonialism on India’s industrial decline among others.

Shashi Ruia
Credited with expanding Essar Group, which toay generates $14 billion in annual revenue, Shashikant Ruia, a first-generation entrepreneur who turned a small construction business into an infrastructure conglomerate, died after a prolonged illness in November. He was 80.

Ruia co-founded the metals-to-technology conglomerate Essar with his brother Ravi. The billionaire started his career in 1965 under the guidance of his father Nand Kishore Ruia. The foundation of Essar Group was laid down by him and his brother in 1969 when they bagged a Rs 2.5 crore order from the Madras Port Trust for the construction of an outer breakwater in the port. In the early years, Essar focused on construction and engineering projects and built a number of bridges, dams, and power plants. In the 1980s, Essar diversified into the energy sector with the acquisition of oil and gas assets. A decade later, it became a significant player in steel and telecommunications, setting up a large steel plant in Gujarat and rising to become India's second-largest telecom operator in a joint venture with Hutchison. It also went on to build an oil refinery in Gujarat. Later, it exited the telecom business, sold the oil refinery to a consortium led by Russia's Rosneft, and had to let go of steel plants to ArcelorMittal when insolvency proceedings were initiated against it to recover unpaid loans.