N Chandrasekaran's challenges

Dragging the Tatas into the 21st century will take more time

When Natarajan Chandrasekaran took over the reins of Tata Sons four years ago, the group was under a cloud. The widely respected Tata group had suffered a major controversy, with the departure of Cyrus Mistry following a well-publicised rift with patriarch Ratan Tata. 

Mr  Chandrasekaran faced a daunting challenge — not just in repairing the group’s image, one of its most valuable properties, but also in dragging it into the 21st century. Mr Tata’s own stewardship of the group, through the liberalisation era, had involved many ambitious bets, especially on overseas expansion. But many of those loaded landmark group companies down