Tata Sons appoints Ronen Sen, Farida Khambata to board

Addition of Farida Khambata and Ronen Sen takes strength to 7

Tata Sons on Wednesday announced an induction of two independent directors, Ronen Sen and Farida Khambata, into its board.

Sen is former ambassador to the US. Khambata is a global strategist at US-based alternative asset management firm Cartica Management.

Khambata is also the first professional woman to join the Tata Sons’ board. Navajbai Tata was appointed the first woman director on the board in 1924. She held the position till her death in 1965.

Tata Sons is the holding company for the over-$100-billion Tata group and its board decides the strategic direction for the group. Tata Trusts, the majority owner of Tata Sons, last year appointed former defence secretary Vijay Singh and Harvard Business School dean Nitin Nohria as nominee directors on the board of Tata Sons in non-executive roles.

Now the board, which includes group chairman Cyrus Mistry and non-executive directors R Gopalakrishnan and Ishaat Hussain, has appointed two independent directors. With this, the Tata Sons board has expanded to seven members; six are in non-executive roles.

“The Tata Sons board has now turned into an advisory institution, with just one executive member in the form of chairman,” said an executive at a management consultancy firm. “This shows a different approach by Mistry, who has created a group executive council below the board to implement strategic decisions,” he added.

Ratan Tata, Mistry’s predecessor, also had a group coordination committee and a group executive office below the board to help implement its decisions. But then, Tata Sons’ board members were also part of these bodies, which is not the case now.  

Apart from Mistry, the other two members from the earlier board are Gopalakrishnan and Hussain. Both will retire after 70.

Earlier this week, Hussain resigned from the board of group company Titan.

LET’S PLAY BOARD GAMES

RONEN SEN Ronen Sen was India’s ambassador to the US from 2004 to 2009. He has also been India’s ambassador to Mexico (1991-92), Russia (1992-98), and Germany (1998-2002), and high commissioner to the UK (2002-04). From 1986 to 1991, he was foreign and defence policy advisor to successive prime ministers and had assignments as special envoy of the prime minister for meetings with heads of states. Joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1966, 1968-1985 he served in Indian missions in the USSR, the US, and Bangladesh; as deputy secretary in the department of atomic energy; secretary to the atomic energy commission; and deputy secretary and joint secretary in the external affairs ministry. He has participated in about 180 bilateral and multilateral summit meetings in six continents. Sen has also served on the board of Tata Motors as an independent director from 2010 to 2012.

Farida Khambata

Farida Khambata is global strategist at the US-based alternate asset management firm Cartica and a member of its investment committee. Prior to joining Cartica, Khambata was a member of International Finance Corporation’s management group. In her last position at IFC, she served as regional vice-president in charge of all operations in East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and the global manufacturing cluster. She was responsible for strategy, investment operations and advisory services in IFC’s member countries in these regions, which account for about three-quarters of all IFC’s investments. She also oversaw all equity investments globally and investments, specifically in agri-business, manufacturing and services, and health and education.