Aditya Birla's strategy head Saurabh Agrawal appointed as Tata Group CFO

He was instrumental in handling the Idea-Vodafone merger deal for Aditya Birla group

Tata Sons has hired Saurabh Agrawal, currently strategy head with the Aditya Birla group, as the conglomerate's Chief Financial Officer reporting to the chairman, N Chandrasekaran. This is the first big ticket appointment made by Chandra after he took over as the group chairman early this year.

A Tata group spokesperson confirmed the appointment of Agrawal - who was instrumental in handling the Idea-Vodafone merger deal for the Aditya Birla group. In March this year, Chandra had made his first appointment in his office by hiring Ankur Verma, former managing director, investment banking, of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Agrawal will join the company with effect from July 2017.

As per Tata Sons statement, Agrawal has a sterling record in both strategy and execution covering a wide range of industries. Before that, he has been Head of the Corporate Finance Unit of Standard Chartered Bank in India and South Asia, and the Head of the Investment Banking Division at DSP Merrill Lynch.

“Agrawal brings deep capital markets knowledge and valuable cross-industry experience to this critical leadership role in the Tata group. His expertise will help us in driving rigour and synergy in capital allocation decisions, investment management as well as consolidation and optimisation of the group’s business portfolio. We look forward to his contribution in driving financial performance of the group,” Chandrasekaran said in a statement.

“I am honoured to join the Tata group. It is an exciting time for the group under the leadership of Chandrasekaran, and I look forward to contributing to the group’s profitable growth with my experience in corporate finance,”  Agrawal said. who is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and has a post-graduate management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

One of the main grouse of Tata group patriarch, Ratan Tata against former Tata Sons chairman, Cyrus Mistry was that hehe failed to appoint a Group CFO after Ishaat Hussain retired as Tata Sons finance director in 2012 after he turned 65. 

In fact, four years after his appointment, Mistry did begin the process of appointing a Tata Group CFO, when that should have been one of his first appointments. 

The group CFO position is important and is considered as a second link between the Tata Sons and its subsidiaries. Hussain, for example, joined the board of Tata Sons as executive director in July 1999 and also a director of several Tata companies, including Tata Industries, Tata Steel and Voltas. Besides, Hussain was also the chairman of Voltas and Tata Sky.

The group’s CFO’s job is cut out as Mistry had warned that the Tata group is facing potential write downs worth $18 billion.  Chandra alongwith the new CFO will have to fire fight the financial crisis in Tata Teleservices, Tata Steel and Tata Motors apart from making sure that Tata Sons gives enough dividend to Tata Trusts that own 66% stake in the company. One of the top reasons given by the Tatas for Mistry’s removal was that he was unable to provide dividend to Tata trusts.