N Chandrasekaran is Tata Sons Chairman

Tata Sons on Thursday named TCS Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director N Chandrasekaran as its new Chairman over two months after the unceremonious sacking of Cyrus Mistry. Popularly known as ‘Chandra’, the 54-year-old was chosen to step into the shoes of interim Chairman Ratan Tata, who took over on October 24 last year after the removal of Mistry.

The decision to appoint Chandra, a Tata group veteran, was taken at a meeting of Tata Sons board here, sources said.

The decision followed a five-member search committee comprising Ratan Tata, TVS Group head Venu Srinivasan, Amit Chandra of Bain Capital, former diplomat Ronen Sen and Lord Kumar Bhattacharya zeroing in on Chandrasekaran. Chandrasekaran has been heading the Tata group’s ‘crown jewel’, software firm TCS, since 2009. He was appointed as a Director on the board of Tata Sons on October 25, 2016, a day after Mistry’s removal.

The search panel was given four months to find the new head of the promoter company of the major operating firms of the $ 103 billion salt-to-software conglomerate, but the decision has been reached even before that. 

Chandrasekaran’s appointment as Tata Sons Chairman comes at a time when the company is fighting a legal battle at the National Company Law Tribunal with Mistry, who has challenged his ouster.