The Tata Trusts board of trustees is believed to have approached a few internal candidates for the position of chief executive officer (CEO) following Srinath Narasimhan, a Tata Group veteran, retired at 60. The Tata Trusts hold 66 per cent of Tata Sons—the holding company for the $128 billion coffee-to-cars conglomerate.
Siddharth Sharma, Tata Sons group chief sustainability officer (CSO), and Sukaran Singh, CEO of Tata Advanced Systems (TASL), are in the race to walk into the corner office, according to a report in the ET.
Plus, the board of trustees is open to other choices available for the top job and no name has been finalised yet. Currently, Ratan Tata is the chairman of the Tata Trusts and his suggestions about the final candidate will be crucial in making a decision.
A Tata insider has traditionally governed the Trusts. In 2020, Narasimhan was named the first CEO of the Tata Trusts, indicating a shift towards to a more professional management style. Earlier, Narasimhan was the managing director of Tata Teleservices and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra). Prior to that, Tata Trusts was handled by a managing trustee, along with 20 trustees.
In 2019, Siddharth Sharma joined the Tatas. He was a bureaucrat for more than two and a half decades and served in key ministries and government departments, including the ministries of finance, external affairs and urban development and played an important role in conceptualising and implementing pension reform in India in the form of the National Pension System.
In 2012-17, Sharma was financial advisor to the late President Pranab Mukherjee. As group CSO, he is responsible for supervising ESG (environmental, social and governance) initiatives and in that capacity heads the Tata Sustainability Group and chairs the Tata Group Sustainability Council.
In 2003, Sukaran Singh joined the Tata Group and is currently CEO of TASL, which provides integrated solutions for aerospace, defence and homeland security.
The Tata Trusts have started strengthening the board of trustees. Recently, Mehli Mistry, 62, a close confidant of Ratan Tata, joined the boards of two Tata Trusts as a trustee. Mistry runs about a dozen companies, with interests ranging from travel to paint distribution and logistics. He is known to have excellent administrative and sourcing skills, the people cited told the daily, emphasising that he may play a crucial role at the Trusts.
