Natarajan Chandrasekaran : Chairman of Tata

"Every time I wanted to do something, he would ask if I am committing myself for the long term or was it for the short term. He would say whenever you have to do a one-off thing; you don't have to think much. Long-term commitments have to be thought through."

                                                                                       -  By Natarajan Chandrasekaran

After a high-profile boardroom battle at the Tata Group, that lasted for over two months, Natarajan Chandrasekaran has been named the new chairman of Tata Sons. Fondly called ‘Chandra’ by people at the Bombay House, the Tata Group’s headquarters, Chandrasekaran is a true insider.

The 53-year-old joined TCS in 1987, rose through the ranks to become CEO in 2009, and and is credited for its spectacular turnaround. Today TCS is the most successful Indian IT company, valued at $67 billion – that’s 60% of the group’s market value and 70% of Tata Son’s revenue.

It is an incredible achievement, to start off at the very bottom and manage to reach the pinnacle of corporate success. But it’s something that the Chandrasekaran family is used to.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran was born in an agricultural family in the village of Mohanur in Tamil Nadu. One of six children, Chandrasekaran’s father was a lawyer but when his grandfather died, his father had to look after the family farm that grew bananas, rice and sugarcane. A man who believed in the power of hard work, Chandrasekaran’s father took the time to teach his son lessons in frugality, honesty and perseverance that held him in good stead throughout his life.

As a kid, Chandrasekaran and his brothers would walk 3 km everyday to their Tamil-medium government school. For his senior secondary exams, he switched to an English-medium. After passing the 10th grade, he moved to Trichy (in Tamil Nadu) to study further. He later recalled, in an interview, how the experience of staying away from home and family was a big change for him.

After earning a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Applied Sciences from the Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Chandrasekaran returned home and stayed for six months to to see whether he would happy taking up agriculture as a profession. After four or five months had passed, however, he realised that he was not cut out for agriculture and considered becoming a chartered accountant. Unfortunately, by then, he had missed the CA admissions for the academic year.

Chandrasekaran then decided to apply for a Master’s in Computer Applications from the Regional Engineering College of Trichy in 1986. Little did he suspect that this decision would go on to change his life. In the final year of his Master’s programme, he took up a project with TCS, and never looked back—starting off as a software programmer and rising to the helm of the company where he learnt the ropes of the IT business.

He never attended any management school nor does he read much management literature. He learnt about team building and customer management through his work that took him to different places for different projects. In 1999, he started the firm’s e-business unit. Under him, it grew it to an over-500 million dollar segment in just four-and-a-half years.

It was here that Chandrasekaran was groomed under the watchful eyes of his mentor, S. Ramadorai (the then-CEO of TCS). Thanks to his mentor’s guidance and his own business acumen, Chandrasekaran’s rise in TCS was fast.
"Going digital is no longer an option,it is the default."

                                                                                                  -  By Natarajan Chandrasekaran                 

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