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Throwback to when Ratan Tata had a job offer from IBM and he didn't have a resume

Tata has recounted several times that Cornell, where he studied architecture and structural engineering, and those years in America from 1955 to 1962 influenced him tremendously

Key Highlights

  • When Tata came back to India, he did not start working with Tata group immediately
  • Tata completed the  Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975
  • Tata ended his journey in Tata Sons in 2012 when he stepped down as Chairman of Tata Sons after 50 years

New Delhi: Tata Sons Emeritus Chairman Ratan Tata os one of the most respected industrialists in the country. Tata is known for his generosity and impeccable work ethic. Not many people know that after coming back to India, he did not join the Tata group immediately. He got a job offer from IBM and JRD Tata was not pleased that despite being back in India, Ratan Tata was not working with Tata Group.

Tata was schooled at Campion and then at Cathedral and John Connon (both in Bombay), where he spent the last three of his schooling years. After finishing his school, he went to Cornell University in the United States, a nation and a state of mind that he would fall in love with. 

Tata has recounted several times that Cornell, where he studied architecture and structural engineering, and those years in America from 1955 to 1962 influenced him tremendously. He travelled the country and got so charmed by California and that West Coast lifestyle that he was ready to settle down in Los Angeles.

However, that spell was broken when his grandmother Lady Navajbai’s health deteriorated and he was forced to return to a life he thought he had left behind. In a 2011 interview with CNN, he said, "I was in Los Angeles and very happily so. And that was where I was when I left before I should have left." 

I didn't have a resume:

When Tata came back to India, he did not start working with Tata group immediately. He actually had a job offer from IBM and JRD Tata wasn’t amused by the fact that despite coming back to India, Ratan Tata was not working with Tata industries. “He called me one day and he said you can’t be here in India and working for IBM. I was in the IBM office and I remember he asked me for a resume, which I didn’t have. The office had electric typewriters so I sat one evening and typed out a resume on their typewriter and gave it to him", Tata revealed once.

And that was how Tata came to be offered a job, in 1962, with Tata Industries. Later in the year, he spent six months training at the Jamshedpur plant of Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company, now called Tata Motors. He moved to Tata Iron and Steel Company, or Tisco (now called Tata Steel) in 1963, at its Jamshedpur facility for a training programme.

In 1969, he worked as the Tata group’s resident representative in Australia. He returned to India in 1970 and joined Tata Consultancy Services. The next year, he was named director-in-charge of National Radio and Electronics (better known as Nelco). Finally, in 1974, Tata joined the board of Tata Sons as a director. 

Tata's journey till retirement:

Tata completed the  Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975. He appointed Chairman of Tata Industries in 1981 and that is when he began the process of transforming the company it into a promoter of high-technology businesses. Not many people know that Tata served Chairman of Air India between 1986-1989. It was in March 1991 that he took over JRD Tata as Chairman of Tata Sons and Chairman of the Tata trusts and started restructuring of the Tata group at a time when the liberalisation of the Indian economy was underway.


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