Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, JRD to the world, remains the undisputed doyen of Indian industry, widely respected for his contribution to the development of Indian industry and aviation in particular. Apart from being a businessman par excellence, he was a patron of the sciences and the arts, a philanthropist and yet a man with a passion for literature, fast cars, skiing and flying. For his unparalleled excellence in business management, he came to be referred to as chairmen's chairman.

As an industrialist, JRD is credited with placing the Tata Group on the international map. He proved his mettle by saving it from disintegration in an era when family ownership and management or family rifts were ripping apart family businesses. He was a redoubtable visionary under whose regime the group entered into several new streams of business, many of them unconventional and produced a vast range of product. As an aviator and pioneer flier, he brought commercial aviation to India. He was greatly revered by artists, sculpture and performing artistes as he generously patronised Indian art and culture. 

And as a philanthropist, he was respected for building and keeping alive the tremendously active Tata charitable trusts. His achievements have to be seen through the lens of India's economic and political history. Under British colonial rule until 1947, India was strait-jacketed by a foreign exchange crunch for almost 40 years after Independence, which gravely limited industrial entrepreneurship. 

From 1964 to 1991, stiff government control through the licence-quota regime further curbed the growth of the group. Despite all these bottlenecks, he expanded the Tata empire manifold and made it India's biggest business group. JRD Tata reigned over the Tata group for more than three decades. He started his stint as chairman at the tender age of 34 in 1938. Under his leadership, the Tata assets grew from Rs 62 crore in 1939 to over Rs 10,000 crore in 1990. At the same time, the number of companies under the group grew from 14 to 50 large manufacturing ones, besides innumerable holding, investment, subsidiaries and associate concerns.

This chairmen's chairman was born on July 29, 1904, in Paris. He was the second child of Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife Sooni. The earliest success of JRD was in cajoling 10 rival cement companies to merge and form the Associated Cement Companies, run by the Tatas. And the rest, as they say, is history. JRD was also a professional to the core and a sensible leader. As one of his executives, Darbari Seth, once said,"Mr Tata was able to harness a team of individualistic executive, capitalising upon their strengths, downplaying their differences and deficiencies; all by the sheer weight of his leadership". 

JRD's respect for his managers bound the group. Leadership, according to him, meant motivating others. "As chairman, my main responsibility is to inspire respect," he was wont to say. Be that as it may, Tata spotted talent easily. And once he was confident that a manager would perform, he gave him a long rope. The supportive climate that he built developed entrepreneurs such as Homi Mody, Ardeshir Dalal, Jehanghir Ghandy, Russi Mody and Darbari Seth. It was an environment where scientists of international repute such as Homi Bhabha, leading lawyers like J D Choksi and Nani Palkhivala and economists such as John Matthai, A D Shroff and D R Pendse could flourish.

A university dropout, JRD was something of a self-taught technocract, and died long before the phrase `war for talent' was coined. Yet, almost every senior Tata director from the 1930s onwards, held a degree from a foreign university. Tata willingly financed bright young boys who wanted to go abroad for further education. He was also a vital bridge between the scientific establishment and the Government through his founding of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and as the longest serving member of the Atomic Energy Commission.

According to JRD, quality had to match innovation. He disliked the laid-back Indian attitude, and much of his fabled short temper was triggered by the carelessness of others. He stressed: "If you want excellence, you must aim at perfection. I know that aiming at perfection has its drawbacks. It makes you go into detail that you can avoid. It takes a lot of energy out of you but that's the only way you finally actually achieve excellence. So in that sense, being finicky is essential... A company, which uses the name Tata shares a tradition..."

JRD was an expert in managing human resource. At his behest, Tata Steel became one of the earliest companies in India to have a dedicated human resource department. Expressing his surprise that the company had functioned for so long without one, JRD commented: "If our operations required the employment of, say, 30,000 machine tools, we would undoubtedly have a special staff or department to look after them, to keep them repair, replace them when necessary, maintain their efficiency, protect them from damage, etc. but when employing 30,000 human beings, each with a mind and soul of his own, we seem to have assumed that they would look after themselves and that there was no need for a separate organisation to deal with the human problems involved".

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and so did JRD's brilliant life. JRD died in Geneva on November 29, 1993. He left behind an indelible mark on the Indian business terrain as also a huge business empire we all know as the House of Tatas.