|
Group
executive office to be expanded
Business Standard —
September 30, 2002
The Tata group will be expanding
the group executive office (GEO), from the current level
of four, and inducting new GEO members from both within
the group and outside.
One of the new or existing GEO
members can be Ratan Tata’s successor as group chairman
five years from now.
Asked whether, while expanding
the GEO, he would induct people who might be potential
successors, Ratan Tata replied: "They would be
worthy people who are potential successors and they
would be from within the group or from outside."
The succession issue, however,
clearly will not crop up for another five years and
no one will be named successor for quite some time.
Tata clarified that his role would remain unchanged
after he steps down as executive chairman on December
28, 2002, when he turns 65. "At 65, you can’t hold
an executive office and you can’t undertake executive
duties. For me, it means changing from being executive
chairman of Tata Sons, to being non-executive chairman
of Tata Sons, which JRD was all through his life."
Queried whether his role in crisis
management at Tata Finance would have been the same
had he been non-executive chairman of Tata Sons, he
said, "I think it would have been absolutely identical."
Tata also clarified in response
to a question that the group would not appoint a group
chief executive but said, "There will be a successor
to the group head by the time I leave (even from a non-executive
position), when I reach the age of 70." Asked what
the experience had been in the GEO and other attempts
to shake up the group, he said: "It’s going okay.
It’s not going as well or in as meshed a manner as one
would have thought. One of the reasons is that the GEO
needs to be expanded, which we are in the process of
looking at."
The current GEO includes Tata
Sons finance director Ishaat Hussain, Tata Sons executive
director R Gopalakrishnan and Tata Industries managing
director Kishore Chaukar, apart from group chairman
Ratan Tata.
On where Noel Tata stood in the
succession sweepstakes, the group chairman said: "Noel
is really involved in his first operative job. He seems
deeply engrossed in it. It's a company in a new area
for the Tatas. If it grows, I think Noel will grow with
it. I'm glad he's getting that kind of exposure and
we'll see where that leads him." Pressed further
on the matter, the chairman said: "In fact, in
all our plans — and I say that very measuredly — people
like Noel, and not because of Noel's last name, will
all have a chance for career growth."
|
