Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata has said late industrialist and former chairman of Tata Group, Ratan Tata, "steered" the conglomerate to new heights, and that he commanded respect within India as well as on the international stage. "There was no dearth of challenges confronting him and doing what was right for the group. He accomplished that while steering the group to fresh frontiers and unprecedented heights," said Noel Tata at the Economic Times' ET Awards today.

After leading India's biggest business house for over two decades, Ratan Tata had passed away at the age of 86 in October 2024. "While it was his achievement in business that made Ratan famous, there was a lot more to him...his vision for the Tata Trusts has seen the institution enhance and expand its philanthropic efforts," said Noel Tata, who is also the half-brother of Ratan Tata.

Noel Tata, who was on the cover of Fortune India magazine's January 2025 issue, is known to be "hardworking, cautious and systematic" himself.

Noel joined the Tata Group 40 years ago, soon after graduating from Sussex University (U.K.) and completing the International Executive Programme from Europe’s non-profit business school, INSEAD. He serves as chairman of Trent, Tata International, Voltas and Tata Investment Corp., and vice chairman of Tata Steel and Titan. During his tenure as MD of Tata International, the trading and distribution arm grew from a turnover of $500 million in 2010 to over $3 billion in 2021. Under his leadership, Trent expanded from a single store in 1998 to over 850 across formats.

The Fortune India report also talked about the influence of Tata Trusts, saying it owns a majority stake in the $165-billion Tata empire that operates over 100 companies; 26 of them are listed with an aggregate market value of over ₹31 lakh crore as on March 2024. Software services giant TCS is the major profit churner for the group. It disbursed nearly ₹80,000 crore as dividend and in buy-back offers to holding company Tata Sons in the last three years. TCS contributed ₹18,177 crore in dividend to Tata Sons in FY24. The holding company received around ₹24,000 crore in dividend from 13 of its listed companies, including ₹2,000 crore from Tata Motors and ₹1,450 crore from Tata Steel.