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The wait for successor to Chairman Ratan Tata, ended Wednesday after Tata Sons, the holding company of over $80 billion conglomerate Tata Group, announced that Cyrus Pallonji Mistry, the 43-year-old Managing Director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, would succeed him.
Mistry will have a year to understand and take over from Ratan Tata, who retires in December 2012.
To many, Mistry’s selection was a surprise - considering that it was almost expected that Tata’s half brother Noel Naval Tata would take over from him.
Mistry, a graduate in civil engineering from London’s Imperial College, has been a director of Tata Sons since August 2006 and is also the brother-in-law of Noel Naval Tata (married to his sister Aloo).
And, while Noel Tata was touted to have been the favourite, there were others in contention to take up from Ratan Tata - among them being MD & CEO of The Indian Hotels Company Limited Raymond Bickson, CEO and MD of TCS Natarajan Chandrasekaran and even chief of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi.
Watch a slideshow of some of the other contenders:
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