 "Who are Maya and Leah Tata, who have now been appointed to Ratan Tata Institute's board?")
Leah and Maya Tata, daughters of Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata, have reportedly joined the board of trustees of the Sir Ratan Tata Industrial Institute (SRTII). Their induction comes months after the demise of Noel’s half-brother and industrialist Ratan Tata, the former Tata Group chairman.
Maya Tata and Leah Tata, along with their brother Neville, belong to the Tata group’s next generation of leaders. Their father, Noel Tata, was elected as the chairman of Tata’s philanthropic arm, Tata Trusts, after Ratan Tata’s demise last October at the age of 86. He is also on the board of Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of various Tata group companies.
Let’s take a closer look.
Who are Leah and Maya Tata?
Leah Tata, 39, is the eldest child of Noel Tata and Aloo Mistry. She is serving as vice president at The Indian Hotels Company Limited, the Tata group’s hospitality arm.
Leah Tata completed her master’s degree in marketing at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain.
She joined the Tata conglomerate in 2006 as the assistant sales manager at the Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces, as per a Financial Express report.
Leah Tata did a three-month internship with Louis Vuitton in 2010. Except for the stint at LV, she has spent the past few years building and expanding the operations of the Tata group’s hotels.
Leah and her siblings, Maya and Neville, are also trustees of the Tata Medical Centre Trust (TMCT), which runs a cancer hospital in Kolkata inaugurated by Ratan Tata , reported Financial Express.
Maya Tata began her career with Tata Opportunities Fund, a subsidiary of Tata Capital, working in portfolio management and investor relations, as per Economic Times (ET).
The 36-year-old is a graduate of Bayes Business School and Warwick University in the United Kingdom. She is currently at Tata Digital and has played a pivotal role in launching the Tata Neu app.
The sisters are seen as possible heirs to the Rs 3,600-crore Tata empire.
Maya, Leah Tata join SRTII
As per an ET report, Leah and her sister Maya have been “unanimously” appointed to the board of trustees of the Sir Ratan Tata Industrial Institute, a unit of Sir Ratan Tata Trust – one of the two primary trusts of the Tata Group.
The duo have replaced Arnaz Kotwal, who is with VFS Global in Dubai, and Freddy Talati, who is working at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), on the SRTII’s board of trustees. However, the change has triggered an internal rift, with Arnaz Kotwal expressing displeasure.
“Since I am now in Dubai and after considerable thought, I have acceded to Burjis’s request but was very saddened that none of you reached out to speak with me directly about this matter and I was blindsided by this communication from a virtual stranger under the direction of his CEO, Sidharth Sharma, both of whom have no nexus to SRTI,” she said in a letter to fellow trustees, as per the financial newspaper.
Burjis Taraporewala is an executive at Tata Trusts.
Established in 1928 by Lady Navajbai Tata and the Stri Zarthostri Mandal, the Sir Ratan Tata Industrial Institute is dedicated to providing employment to women.
As per ET, the sisters were selected by the board of trustees of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which is empowered to nominate three of the six board members of SRTII.
SRTT trustees, comprising Noel Tata, Vijay Singh, Venu Srinivasan, Darius Khambata, Jehangir H Jehangir and Mehli Mistry, picked Maya and Leah Tata as they were seeking people with prior knowledge of managing the affairs of SRTII and were available in Mumbai on a regular basis.
The Tata sisters have closely worked with the Sir Ratan Tata Industrial Institute.
With inputs from agencies
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