MUMBAI: Tata Sons announced organisational changes to ensure continuity after it disbanded the ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry’s advisory council last week resulting in the resignation of key executives.
Tata Group veteran S. Padmanabhan has been assigned the task to oversee the Group Human Resources department in addition to his existing responsibility of leading the Tata Business Excellence Group.
Last week Dr. N. S. Rajan, the Chief Human Resources Officer of Tata Group and Group Executive Council (GEC) member had resigned days after the GEC was dissolved. Two other GEC members Dr. Nirmalya Kumar and Madhu Kannan had also resigned.
However, the rest of the two GEC members, Dr. Mukund Rajan and Harish Bhat, who are old timers at the Tata Group have been assigned new roles.
“Dr. 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,” according to a statement from Tata Sons.
“Mr. 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.”
Prior to this Dr. Nirmalya Kumar was in charge of Strategy and Mr Kannan was looking after Business Development and Public Affairs at the Tata Group.
Dr. Gopichand Katragadda, who was recruited by Mr. Mistry in August 2014, will continue to be the Group Chief Technology Officer.
Prior to joining Tata Sons, Dr. Katragadda had served as Managing Director of the GE India Technology Centre, leading GE’s India technology team of over 5,000 engineers and scientists.
Sanjay Singh, an old Tata hand who had a long stint at Tata Steel in corporate communication department before being appointed as resident representative of the Tata Group in Delhi has been asked to oversee the Public Affairs function out of the Delhi office.
On the three key executives who had resigned, Tata Sons said, “Dr. Kumar, Dr. Rajan and Mr. Kannan have decided to explore options outside Tata Sons and have left the services of the company.”
