Three of Cyrus Mistry's men given 6 month severance pay to leave

MUMBAI: On October 24, right after the Tata Sons board decided to remove chairman Cyrus Mistry, three members of his group executive council were asked to meet a senior executive at the company.

The executive briefed Nirmalya Kumar, Madhu Kannan and NS Rajan about the decision on Mistry, a source familiar with the development of that day. They were then offered a severance package equal to six months' pay. All three resigned over the next few days.

"It is an internal matter of the group," said Tata Sons spokesman Debasis Ray. Nirmalya Kumar, in a message to ET, said "these were personal matters" and refused to discuss further. NS Rajan declined to comment, while Kannan did not respond to ET's messages.

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The GEC was the brain trust formed by Mistry in 2013 to give strategic and operational guidance to the chairman. It included chief human resources officer Rajan, strategist Kumar, business development officer Kannan, as well as former Titan Chief Operating Officer Harish Bhat and Brand Custodian Mukund Rajan. Mistry was also a member of this panel.


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The coterie of Mistry has now been disbanded and only two of its members — Mukund Rajan and Bhat — are retained by the group. ET reported on Thursday that a new team under Interim Chairman Ratan Tata is being formed, in which Mukund Rajan will be made chief sustainability and group ethics officer to manage Tata Sons' overseas operations. Bhat will be in charge of business development, which was earlier overseen by Kannan.


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In his new role, Mukund Rajan will have to navigate politically sensitive issues like the future of Tata's struggling steel business in the UK and Jaguar Land Rover's Chinese operations.


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Besides Bhat and Rajan, the new team will include S Padmanabhan as the chief HR officer. Gopichand Katragadda will continue as the chief technology officer.