‘Humility, Compassion, Learning…’: CEOs Share Ratan Tata’s Personality Traits Everyone Should Follow

Business leaders across industries on Thursday mourned the death of Ratan Tata saying that with his demise, India has lost a visionary who shaped its industrial and philanthropic landscape. CEOs and other business leaders share personality traits of Tata Sons former chairman Rata Tata that everyone must embrace to achieve success professionally and personally.

Pidilite CEO Bharat Puri, who has also served on the board of Mondelēz International along with Ratan Tata, said, “One is one of the Indians that make you proud to be an Indian. Mondelēz once had an annual retreat in the US, where I was the lone Indian senior manager and therefore, I was given charge of looking after Mr Tata when he was there. It was an absolute pleasure. Two things really stood out. One was his humility, his gentlemanliness. He would wear his title, achievements very very lightly. The second one was his concern for others.”

Rata Tata once said, according to Puri: “You people spend so much of time discussing half a percent of market share but shouldn’t you be discussing the emerging markets. Can your confectionary be used to smuggle in nutrients, vitamins there? So, he was deeply concerned for others.”

Sharing his interactions with Tata, Chef & Enterpreneur Sanjeev Kapoor said, “Indeed it’s a very sad day. I think there are many things interactions with him. When Mr Tata just became the chairman, and I just started doing TV and was struggling with my fame and what to do or what not to do. I once found Mr Tata at a US club with a dog sitting and he was the top guy. Still, he was control without people around, no security, no rush, nothing. Things I learned from him over the years are — humility, trust, and compassion.”

Ambi Parameswaran, a brand strategist and founder of Brand-Building.com, “It’s a sad day for all of us. I worked at the Tata Motors business for almost 20 years. We launched the Tata Indica and then the Tata Indigo. My interaction with Mr Ratan Tata was during the launch of the Indigo Marina. The launch was in the evening and I got a call to attend the event. I reached there and then Mr Tata came in his silver car. He then called me and asked what do I think about the car, what do you think abou the colour. He pointed to the corner of the car and asked do you think this will be noticed? He then spoke to two engineers and then left. Then, I wondered why the chairman of a company dropped everything and then came to check the colour of the car. So, it was the curiousity, the joy of discovering something new. It is something that everyone needs to learn from him — curiosity, the learning mindset.”

BeHeCo’s Yash Kotak, who is among the first few founders to meet Ratan Tata, pitch his ideas and get funding, said, “The loss feels a little personal. It’s a very sad day. Whatever we are today, it was not possible if it was not for him. We seven persons founded our company, Bombay Hemp Company, working with a plant called cannabis to make medicines and textiles from it. When we started we realised cannabis is a plant that lacks credibility. As we are new to the business, we lacked credibility as well. During that time, we co-founders met Ratan Tata co-incidently at an event in 2015-16 where Mr Tata was the speaker.”

“We were scared that we will not get even 60 seconds of his time. Mr Tata went to the washroom and one of our co-founders waited for him right there to elevate our pitch. But when he came out and we started pitching our idea, it turned out he knew so much about hemp and cannabis and their applications. He said he would love to talk more about it. He just pulled out his business card and said why don’t you reach out to my office? Then we got a 30-minute meeting with him, which stretched to 2 hours, which was unbelievable. We got his investment and it got us a boost,” Kotak said.

Responsibility and integrity are the two things everybody should learn from him.