Even for an ace driver like Noel Tata, Tata Trusts chairman, 2025 turned out to be a bumpy drive. However few have been shocked. With the late Ratan Tata staying firmly on the helm till his passing — with out naming a successor — the second of transition was all the time going to be fraught. Suspense was inevitable. So was the expectation of boardroom turbulence.
What did shock many was that the storm didn’t break instantly.
For some time, Noel Tata appeared the pure, virtually default selection. He was the one eligible Tata by surname, the son-in-law of the Mistry household, and uniquely positioned on the intersection of the 2 households that collectively personal 100% of Tata Sons. If anybody might bridge legacy and continuity, it was him.
But Noel Tata has lived with the shadow of succession for over a decade. Again in 2012, when the Tata Group was looking for Ratan Tata’s successor at Tata Sons, he was extensively seen as a critical contender. That chance light after Ratan Tata informed a international publication that Noel lacked the requisite expertise — a remark that was extensively interpreted as a sign to the choice committee. What adopted is properly documented historical past.
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Quick ahead to September 2025, when fault strains lastly surfaced — at a Tata Trusts board assembly no much less. The long-simmering rift between the Tata and Mehli Mistry factions spilled into the open.
September Storm
Mistry had lengthy been a formidable presence inside Tata Trusts, owing to his shut relationship with Ratan Tata — regardless of being a part of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, which owns 18.37% of Tata Sons, the holding firm of the Rs 15.24 lakh crore conglomerate. Notably, Mehli had stood firmly with Ratan Tata through the bruising battle with Cyrus Mistry, his personal cousin. That historical past gave him ethical heft inside the Trusts.
After Noel Tata assumed the chairmanship, nonetheless, the Mistry bloc started to really feel more and more marginalised. They argued that key choices have been being taken with out sufficient session and sought higher entry to Tata Sons board agendas and deliberations throughout Belief conferences.
The primary open salvo got here when the Mistry faction blocked a decision to reappoint 77-year-old Vijay Singh, former defence secretary, as nominee director on the Tata Sons board. The vote break up the Trusts 3-4 — an unprecedented fracture. The Tata bloc retaliated by opposing Mistry’s appointment. Singh subsequently selected to resign voluntarily from the Tata Sons board, however the harm was completed.
With board appointments paralysed and governance questions mounting, the dispute took a rare flip — it reached the federal government’s doorstep. For a 156-year-old group famed for quiet consensus-building, this was uncharted territory.
Many say this was an irony. One of many causes cited for Tata Trusts’ reluctance to record Tata Sons, the group’s holding firm, is that it doesn’t need exterior scrutiny into its enterprise operations. Whereas Noel Tata needs to fiercely retain Tata Sons’ non-public firm standing, he didn’t discover it odd to hunt the federal government’s assist for an inside affair. The Tata Sons itemizing challenge nonetheless stays unresolved — an vital agenda for Noel in 2026.
For now, the stress has labored because the Mistry faction seems to have retreated. However the truce got here at a price. Mistry resigned from a number of Tata establishments — beginning with Tata Trusts, adopted by the Small Animal Hospital Belief, and most lately, the Nationwide Centre for the Performing Arts.
But the acrimony surrounding Vijay Singh’s exit continues to rankle. In a letter to the board in November, Darius Khambata — believed to be within the Mistry camp — sought to calm nerves, writing, “We felt completely nothing in opposition to Vijay (Singh), and regretted that he was not current on the assembly in order that we might clarify our place head to head.” He additionally rejected strategies that the occasions of September 11 have been an try to seize management of the Trusts. Few within the Tata camp, nonetheless, are satisfied about this.
Rise of Neville Tata
Paradoxically, it was Khambata who proposed the induction of Noel’s 32-year-old son, Neville Tata, to the Tata Trusts board. With that transfer, the ambiance is predicted to ease. For the primary time in historical past, a father-son duo now sits on the Trusts board — probably smoothing succession planning and decreasing future flashpoints. Noel can also be now the primary Tata to carry 1% stake in Tata Sons after his mom Simon Tata’s demise. There’s additionally quiet hypothesis that when re-nomination cycles come round, the Mistry bloc might face the axe.
For Noel Tata, the primary yr as chairman has been a sobering initiation. Energy on the Tata Group has by no means been merely institutional; it’s deeply private, formed by legacy, loyalty and lineage. As Gita Piramal wrote in Enterprise Maharajas a long time in the past: “It’s exhausting being a Tata. The surname doesn’t allow failure.”
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