Cyrus Mistry's ouster: Tata Sons announces organisational changes to steer the Group forward

Zee Media Bureau

Mumbai: Tata Sons, on Friday announced organisational changes with "immediate effect" and said that the Group Human Resources responsibilities will be overseen by S Padmanabhan, in addition to his existing responsibilities of leading the Tata Business Excellence Group.

In a statement, Tata Sons said that Mukund Rajan will continue to be responsible for Ethics & Sustainability, and will take additional responsibility of overseeing the operations of the overseas representative offices of Tata Sons in the USA, Singapore, Dubai and China.

Harish Bhat, in addition to his responsibilities for Marketing and Customer Centricity, will henceforth also be responsible for managing the Tata Brand. In the interim, he will oversee the functions of Strategy and Business Development.

Gopichand Katragadda will continue to be the Group Chief Technology Officer, while Sanjay Singh will oversee the Public Affairs function out of the Delhi office.

Dr. Nirmalya Kumar, Dr. N S Rajan and Mr. Madhu Kannan have decided to explore options outside Tata Sons and have left the services of the company.

Just after the sudden ouster of Cyrus Mistry from the post of the Chairman of Tata Sons, the group has disbanded the Group Executive Council (GEC) set up by him.

The GEC was set up by Mistry in April 2013. The prime objective was to provide strategic and operational support to him.

It included N S Rajan from Ernst & Young, Tata brand custodian Mukund Rajan, ex-BSE chief Madhu Kannan, strategist Nirmalya Kumar and Tata veteran Harish Bhat.

Mukund Rajan and Harish Bhat will be offered new roles within the group, sources in the know of the development said.

However, it is unclear what fate awaits for the rest of the members in the group.

Soon after making public the departure of Mistry, Tata Group's website removed all the details related to the GEC, including profile of the members.

"The page you are looking for has been moved or removed," said a message on the web page of GEC on Tata group's official website.

Comments could not be obtained from Tata Sons on the same.

The GEC had replaced the roles earlier which were performed by the group corporate centre (GCC) and the group executive office (GEO) before Mistry took over as Chairman.

Meanwhile in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ratan Tata informed that the Board of Directors of Tata Sons has in its meeting today decided to replace Cyrus P Mistry as Chairman with immediate effect.

"A new management structure is being put in place and a selection committee has been constituted to identify the next chairman," he said in the letter.

Subsequent to the day's development, Tata group's listed firm Tata Motors and Tata Power informed the bourses about Mistry's departure.

"Ratan N Tata shall be the Interim Chairman of Tata Sons Limited until the new Chairman is appointed in accordance with the procedure prescribed in the Companies Act, 2013 and the Articles of Association of Tata Sons Ltd," Tata Motors informed the BSE.

"This being a material development, the necessary disclosure is being made to the stock exchange," Tata Power said while informing the bourses.

Tata group has several listed entities, including Tata Chemicals, Indian Hotels Co Ltd, Tata Coffee, Tata Elxsi, TCS, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Investment Corporation, Tata Sponge Iron, Tata Steel and Tata Teleservices.

The Tata group comprises over a 100 operating companies spread across six continents.

In 2015-16, the revenue of Tata companies, taken together, was USD 103 billion and collectively employed over 6,60,000 people.