Letter #226: Ratan Tata and Simi Garewal (1997)
Chairman of Tata Group & Tata Sons and Founder of Siga Arts International | Rendezvous with Simi Garewal
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Earlier this week, Ratan Tata passed away. In his 21 years as Chairman, Ratan steered the Tata Group through India’s liberalization and multiple global crises, all the while growing revenue 46x, net profit 51x, and market cap 33x. And while there are books upon books and case studies upon cases studies written about the Tata family and Tata Group, Ratan Tata himself was rather media aloof. And when he did speak, it was often about his businesses or his country.
So today, I wanted to share with you a conversation between Ratan and his close friend Simi Garewal, where Ratan discusses his upbringing, his relationship with his grandmother and mentor, returning to India, his business goals, why he has been successful, why he’s proud to be Indian, and a bit of his personal life and personal beliefs. This was a particularly interesting conversation not only because Ratan was media-shy, but because Simi had been a close friend (and at one point girlfriend) for decades, who let him feel at ease and willing to open up.
Ratan Tata was the Chairman of Tata Group and Tata Sons. He started his career at A. Quincy Jones’ architecture firm Jones & Emmons, but quickly returned to India to be close to his Grandmother. After returning, he secured a job at IBM, but was admonished by his mentor, then Chairman of the Tata Group, JRD Tata. He then applied for a job at Tata Industries, and joined the Jamshedpur plant of Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO—now known as Tata Motors), where he spent six months on the shop floor. He then joined Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), where he spent several years on the shop floor as part of a training program. After several years at TISCO, he became the Tata Group’s resident representative in Australia. After a year, he returned to India and joined Tata Consultancy Services, before being named director-in-charge of National Radio and Electronics (NELCO). A few years later, he joined the board of Tata Sons.
In 1981, nearly two decades after he joined Tata, Ratan was appointed Chairman of Tata Industries. A decade later, when he was chosen by JRD Tata to succeed him as Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Trusts, Ratan faced pushback from subsidiary leaders who had a large degree of operational freedom under JRD’s leadership. However, ultimately, Ratan settled with each of them and implemented a number of policies that consolidated his power, such as establishing a retirement age and requiring subsidiaries report directly to the group office and contribute their profit to building the Tata group brand. As a leader, Ratan loved technology, and prioritized innovation, as well as gave real responsibility to young talent. Under his leadership, he streamlined company operations across subsidiaries, divested unrelated businesses, and took the company global.
Over his tenure, the Tata Group grew revenue >40x, profit >50x, and market cap >30x, acquired a flurry of companies including Jaguar, Land Rover, Tetley, and Corus, and launched the Tata Indica before spearheading the development of the Tata Nano car. Upon turning 75 in 2012, he resigned his executive powers and became Chairman Emeritus, although he did return to serve as interim Chairman from 2016-2017.
Simi Garewal is the founder of Siga Arts International, an award-winning television and film production company. At Siga, she was produced, written, directed, and edited media spanning multi-part documentaries, feature films, television shows, commercials, campaign films, talkshows, and more. She started her career as an actress, and appeared in ~60 films over two decades.
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!
[Transcript and any errors are mine.]
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Transcript
Simi Garewal: My guest tonight is from the select and rarefied circle of India's men of distinction. His famous name carries a legend of achievement, with integrity, as does the man himself: Ratan Tata. We first met at a time in our lives when we'd both returned from abroad, and were both at the threshold of unknown worlds that lay ahead. For him, the world of corporate challenge. For me, the world of [celluloid fantasy]. Today, the same Ratan Tata stands tall as chairman of the Tata Group, undisputed leader of Indian industry. I feel a special pride and privilege to have a "Rendezvous" with the intensely private, and immensely gracious, Ratan Tata.
…
I want to thank you for accepting my invitation. I know how media aloof you are, so can I just say quite simply, I'm honored by your presence. Thank you.
Ratan Tata: Thank you, Simi. It's a pleasure to be here today.
Simi Garewal: Do you remember when we first met, long back? You just come back from the US and after graduating in architecture and structural engineering. Is that what you had planned to do with your life? To become an architect?
Ratan Tata: Yes. In fact, I worked in the US as an architect and as a structural engineer for a period of time after I graduated, and had no intention of coming back.
Simi Garewal: So you were well settled there.
Ratan Tata: Well, I was not well settled, but I was happily employed there.
Simi Garewal: Then what happened?
Ratan Tata: My grandmother talked me into returning. Or rather, I returned because she wanted me back.
Simi Garewal: This is Lady Navajbai.
Ratan Tata: That's right, that's right. She was at that time getting quite old, and I had been very close to her. My mother and father had divorced when my brother and I were quite young. And she brought us up. So I was quite close to her, and she wanted me back, and so I came back for her, or I would not have come. I happily came back.
Simi Garewal: Okay. After a few months, I remember you moved on to Jamshedpur.
Ratan Tata: Actually, after 15 days, I think, of returning, I was sent out to Jamshedpur.
Simi Garewal: What was it like then?
Ratan Tata: It seemed like everyone was concerned that I should not be treated differently, so I was told to stay in an apprentice hostel, and I worked on the shop floor for six months in TELCO. And then for a couple of years in TISCO, on the shop floor. I was attached to various production departments. I was in the blast furnaces, near the furnace, in in the steel melting shops. I knew every nook and cranny of the TISCO works. It was terrible at that time, but if I look back on it, it's been a very worthwhile experience, because I've spent years hand in hand with workers, I have mixed with them, I have eaten in their canteens, I have been attached to superintendents--many of the people who are in management in TISCO today remember those days when this goofy young guy was walking the shop floors.
Simi Garewal: So actually, the Tata name didn't bring any privileges, did it?
Ratan Tata: No. In fact, I'd say it was a disadvantage. Here was someone who'd just come in from Los Angeles being told that you will not take your car to Jamshedpur, you will go by bicycle. And out of a sense of rebellion, I refused, and I'd walk to work every day. So those kinds of things, looking back on those years, it was a good thing.
Simi Garewal: Did you at any time feel any regret? What have I done? I mean, those lovely days in LA and suddenly I'm in the middle of this?
Ratan Tata: Yeah, I almost went back three times in my life.
Simi Garewal: What stopped you?
Ratan Tata: I guess as time went on, the prospect--my grandmother had died in--four or five years after I--while I was still in Jamshedpur--and the ties to remain here were less. But I guess as you get involved, it becomes more difficult to pack a bag and move again.
Simi Garewal: Did you ever put to use all the training that you had in architecture instruction?
Ratan Tata: No, not after I came back. I had the opportunity of designing and building a house for my mother, which still stands, and one house in Jamshedpur. But that's about all.
Simi Garewal: That's about it. So you were 25 when you moved to Jamshedpur. Do you feel life has surprised you? I mean, did you know how it would turn out?
Ratan Tata: No. No, it was an experience. It was both culturally an experience, workwise, it was an experience.
Simi Garewal: Did you know where you were going?
Ratan Tata: No. That's why I almost went back. For seven, eight years, I just didn't know where I was going.
Simi Garewal: So it has surprised you, the way it turned out, hasn't it?
Ratan Tata: Yes, things started to change much later in life, for me, and it seemed to have a direction, there seemed to be--
Simi Garewal: That you put in a very long apprenticeship, didn't you?
Ratan Tata: Yes, it seemed like an endless apprenticeship. And perhaps the change came when I got involved with NELCO, which was a small electronic company that nobody wanted to touch--
Simi Garewal: You were in a firefighting situation, weren't you?
Ratan Tata: That's right. So that was when things started to really become both challenging and interesting.
Simi Garewal: And that's when you started enjoying it.
Ratan Tata: And that's when I started enjoying it. After that, I never looked at going back.
Simi Garewal: What was it like working with Mr. JRD Tata?
Ratan Tata: I just have to say one word: wonderful.
Simi Garewal: With wonder.
Ratan Tata: One looked at him first, in my case, with a certain degree of awe. I have to say, I didn't know Jay in my younger days.
Simi Garewal: He's not directly related to you.
Ratan Tata: No, no. People have called him my cousin, my uncle, and so on--
Simi Garewal: Father, even.
Ratan Tata: We were really not related. And I really first got to know him while I was in Jamshedpur, over our common interest in flying. And I set up a flying club at his behest in Jamshedpur, and that brought us a little closer together. And as years went on, we became closer, mostly through the bond of flying. And through his tremendous interest in new things--new technology, electronics, computers, etc--which gave us common ground to talk and tremendous excitement over so many things of today's world.
Simi Garewal: Yes. And in those days.
Ratan Tata: In those days.
Simi Garewal: I can imagine. I saw a completely different side of him, because I'd met him socially on a number of occasions. Very courtly, very generous in his praise. But what I really enjoyed was, we used to play games at a mutual friend's house, and he was wonderful at dumb charades.
Ratan Tata: I see. That's the side I never saw.
Simi Garewal: We were, in the beginning, we were always in awe of him. But within an hour or so, he made us feel he was our age.
Ratan Tata: He was the he was a wonderful human being. Lovely human qualities, totally humble.
Simi Garewal: Very self effacing.
Ratan Tata: He never would let anyone check him in when he flew. He would always stand in line too, at a check-in counter. He drove his car home every evening. He often drove himself to work in the morning. And he was an Indian, through and through. He was a very, very warm human being. I really got to know him and love him as as time went on.
Simi Garewal: When were you first aware that he had chosen you as his successor?
Ratan Tata: Probably a few days before it happened.
Simi Garewal: How did he tell you?
Ratan Tata: Well, that's a little bit of a long story. We were in Jamshedpur together for a function, and I had to go to Stuttgart for some negotiations with Mercedes Benz. And when I came back, I heard he'd had a heart problem, and he was in Breach Candy Hospital. He was there a week. And I'd see him every day. And then he was out on a Friday, and the following Monday, I went to see him in the office. And he'd always start meetings by saying, Well, what's new? And I said, Well, Jay, I've been seeing you every day. There's nothing new since I saw you last. And he said, Well, I have something that's new, that I want to tell you. Sit down. And he said, What has happened to me in Jamshedpur has made me think that I need to step down. And I've decided that you should take my place. And then there were a few days more, and then he took it to the board.
Simi Garewal: That's on the 25th of March, 1991.
Ratan Tata: I don't remember the day, but probably. If you say that's the day, that's the day.
Simi Garewal: But the people who were present at that meeting say they regretted not having a camera to record the events. It was a moving experience. Can you take me back to that meeting, somewhat?
Ratan Tata: Well, I've heard many of my colleagues say that there was history that day, because apart from the fact that he was stepping down from a position he'd held for, I don't know, 40, 50, years, there was therefore a lot of emotion attached to his giving up this position in favor of someone. But the history and the emotion that everyone talks about is not that move. He then reminisced through his years at that meeting--and I can't reproduce any of that emotionally or otherwise, but the meeting went on, which was like an archival recount of all his days in Tata. Never his own praise, but just his experiences as he went through. And there was history that day. I think we all came out very moved.
Simi Garewal: I can imagine. It was the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one.
Ratan Tata: That's right. That's right.
Simi Garewal: So what did you learn from him that you carry with you always?
Ratan Tata: What I learned from him, perhaps, and what I carry with me is his sense of justice, which was always prevalent. He was always fair and just. He always did what he considered to be the right thing, irrespective of how difficult it was. And he stood up for principles, and he stood by people. He stood by me when I was in trouble in NELCO. So his value system, his simplicity, his sense of justice, were all things that I think have stayed with me. And I hope I can emulate them even half as well as he was able to do through his life.
Simi Garewal: Talking about this value system, what I knew of you and what I remember best about you from those early years was something that happened before you started working with Mr. JRD Tata, so it was there in you in any case, was the fact that if you'd said something, Ratan, you always did it. I mean, in those days, we were all very young, and even if it boiled down to small things, like, if you said you'd phone, you would phone. If you said you'd write, you wrote. You always kept your word. And I feel that that is an integral attribute of your personality. It's very important to you, isn't it?
Ratan Tata: It is. But I was dealing with someone who was, in those in those days, I looked upon as very attractive and... so it was--I was also driven by that. I can't say that I've been that honorable in terms of keeping my word on all sorts of things. But by and large, I--
Simi Garewal: You generally do.
Ratan Tata: I generally do. I tend to not say things loosely. I try to live up to whatever I've said, commitments I've made.
Simi Garewal: After all these years, I know that if Ratan says it, you can count on it.
Ratan Tata: Well, thank you. That's a nice thing to hear.
Simi Garewal: But we all know that Tatas have always played it strictly by the rules, very ethically. Has this slowed down the rate of progress, do you think?
Ratan Tata: I think at times we have suffered, we have paid a price, if you might. I think we also gained a great deal of respect. And what I would say, and I've told many, is that there's something that is important to me--and that is to go to bed at night or to wake up in the morning feeling that we have not sacrificed our principles, and that we have not subordinated our values, to some short-term, materialistic aims. And in some sort of perverse way, you as a group are respected because they feel that, well, you will not do that. When there is something that deals with the nation, or there's a calamity, people turn to Tatas. And at other times, unfortunately, we feel we're discriminated against.
Simi Garewal: Like when?
Ratan Tata: When there are issues which relate to questionable ethics. Projects that we feel we should get, which we don't. Or which we find, for subjective reasons, someone else steps in. But all of that is forgotten when there is something that no one else is willing to do. Then one turns to us. And I think, in a way, that's an honor.
Simi Garewal: Rajiv Gandhi inherited a party which is almost as old as your company, and he said he'd found a lot of resistance to change within his party. Have you found that in your company?
Ratan Tata: Oh, yes. Very much so. In fact, much of my time goes in questioning the unquestioned, if you might, of trying to convince people that there needs to be change, when they don't agree. Most of our younger people would like to see change. Most of the elders would not like to see change--with a few exceptions. And in some cases, you can be the champion of change. In other cases, you got to take the unpleasant route of being autocratic and forcing change.
Simi Garewal: Today, what is your agenda for Tatas?
Ratan Tata: We've set some goals. We'd like to be a group that has revenues of over 100,000 crores by the turn of the century, or into the next century. Right now, I think we have a lot of consolidating to do. And more importantly, I think we have to be conscious of the community in which we live. A lot of emphasis is being given to the environment, and making sure that we don't detract or deteriorate the environment in which we are. All our companies are very conscious of being good corporate citizens, if you might.
Simi Garewal: Running such a huge conglomerate must be stressful at times, Ratan.
Ratan Tata: It is. But it's something that you don't mind--we feel so proud.
Simi Garewal: How do you unwind?
Ratan Tata: Most of the unwinding in the last 10, 12 years has been take my dog for a run or just getting out and having a change of pace.
Simi Garewal: What sort of music do you like?
Ratan Tata: Oh, I've always been fond of all types of music. Love jazz, I love classical music.
Simi Garewal: What about television? Do you watch television?
Ratan Tata: Yeah, quite a bit, of late.
Simi Garewal: Oh, that's good.
Ratan Tata: There's more variety to watch now, so--
Simi Garewal: And what about movies?
Ratan Tata: Also via television. I don't think I've been to a movie theater in ages.
Simi Garewal: Do you see any Hindi movies?
Ratan Tata: You can't help but see them on television today.
Simi Garewal: I'd love to see the sight of Ratan Tala sitting watching a Hindi movie.
Ratan Tata: My Hindi has improved ever since then.
Simi Garewal: Can you remember any of the films that you enjoyed?
Ratan Tata: No, no. They're all so violent. I think there's more ketchup that's spread in Hindi movies than there are in all the restaurants in Bombay. I am very irritating to be around when I watch television. I'm very impatient and I watch four or five channels at the same time.
Simi Garewal: When you were very young, you used to, even then, hate ostentatious displays of wealth and things like that. And when you used to go to camp in school, in the family-driven Rolls, you used to shrivel up and die of embarrassment, because you hated that--
Ratan Tata: It wasn't the Rolls. It was the Delage, I remember. And it was my grandmother's car, and it was a very old fashioned car. And she had--it was one of these cars that where the driver sat it was open, and the back was closed. And it had big lights and tires on the outside. To me, it was such an ostentatious vehicle that I would walk home when it came. And I'd always ask her to send another car, but not that.
Simi Garewal: I think children don't like having the spotlight on them.
Ratan Tata: That's right.
Simi Garewal: Rajiv, he also told me as well, that when he was in Dehradun, and his grandfather, the Prime Minister, would visit, he would be so embarrassed because the spotlight would be on him, that he'd go and hide somewhere, just not to be there. People perceive you as being remote, and a recluse in a way. It's not true, is it?
Ratan Tata: I think it is true. I think I suffer from that.
Simi Garewal: Why?
Ratan Tata: Well, I don't know. It comes from... you're in the office all day, around a lot of people, a lot of telephone calls. And there's some sense of serenity in having a departure from that. You remember, when we first met many years ago, walking--
Simi Garewal: On the beach.
Ratan Tata: Walking on the beautiful beach, and so on. It was something I enjoyed--I still enjoy it. And there's something in that solitude. A lot of thinking gets done. And a lot of unwinding gets done in that process too.
Simi Garewal: But in those days, you were not a loner. But people say you are now.
Ratan Tata: Yeah, because I think, over time, one becomes alone. And the job makes you a little lonely.
Simi Garewal: Do you trust people?
Ratan Tata: Yes, I think so. People may disagree, but I think I do.
Simi Garewal: You tend to trust people.
Ratan Tata: Yes, yes.
Simi Garewal: Do you make new friends easily? Do you have new--
Ratan Tata: Yes.
Simi Garewal: Or do your friends tend to be from the early days?
Ratan Tata: No. Many--in fact, I'm very poor at keeping up friendships.
Simi Garewal: Yeah, you can say that again. Without a wife, without children, a family, what motivates you, Ratan?
Ratan Tata: I don't know what motivates me, but let me just stay with that for a minute. There are many times I feel lonely at not having a wife or a family, and sometimes I long for it. Sometimes I enjoy the freedom of not having to worry about the feelings of someone else or the concerns of someone else. At other times I... it gets very lonely.
Simi Garewal: I mean, was the timing a bit tough?
Ratan Tata: Yeah. And a whole series of things. Timing, my absorption in work at that time. There were very many things. I came very close to getting married a few times, and... they didn't work out.
Simi Garewal: But there are, as they say, confinements and consolations.
Ratan Tata: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Simi Garewal: So you must miss the consolations today.
Ratan Tata: Yeah, yeah.
Simi Garewal: It's not too late.
Ratan Tata: Oh, never too late.
Simi Garewal: Who your heroes?
Ratan Tata: I don't know one. One hero I've always had, who no longer lives, has been John Kennedy.
Simi Garewal: Oh, yes.
Ratan Tata: Of course, I was very much in the US at that time. That person stands out still as very much my hero at that time. And continues to get me emotionally nostalgic about the days that I was there.
Simi Garewal: What makes you proud of being an Indian?
Ratan Tata: Well, I think, I'm very proud of India, and I'm proud to be an Indian. I love my country, where I feel proud of what we do, I feel sad for what we don't do. But I just have a great national pride. I feel this country can really go places. I feel we're living at a very exciting point in this country's history. We are very optimistic about where we are going--or where we can go. I hope we go there.
Simi Garewal: Ratan, many years ago, you wrote a letter to JRD Tata, in which you said, and I quote, "You set the highest standards of integrity that I've ever seen in anyone, in the manner in which you've conducted yourself." And I think those very same words apply to you.
Ratan Tata: Thank you.
Simi Garewal: Thank you so much.
Ratan Tata: Not at all. Thank you. It was a great pleasure. Thank you.
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