Today's announcement on the successor to Mr Ratan Tata is the culmination of a 14-month long effort.
Tata Sons announced in August 2010 that its board of directors had formed a five-member selection committee to find a successor to Mr Tata.
A release said: “The board of directors of Tata Sons, in accordance with its Articles of Association, has formed a selection committee, comprising five members including an external member, for eventually deciding on a suitable successor to Rata Tata. Mr Tata is due to retire only at the end of December 2012.”
The five members of the committee were: Mr N.A. Soonawala, Mr Shirin Bharucha, Mr R.K. Krishna Kumar, Mr Cyrus Mistry and Lord Bhattacharya.
In an in-house interview, Mr R.K. Krishna Kumar, a director of Tata Sons and a member of the selection committee, in March 2011, had talked about the difficulty in finding a successor.
To a question on how difficult it had been to find a successor, Mr Krishna Kumar replied: “Our committee has come to the conclusion that we cannot find a replacement for Mr Tata. We may have to change and rearrange the model in terms of what we are looking for. We are now considering people – from within the group and outside, including expatriates – who can fill the role we have in mind. There are challenges but we will soon come to a conclusion.”