Tata Sons, the promoter of major operating Tata companies, on Tuesday appointed Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) CEO Ralf Speth and TCS CEO & MD N Chandrasekaran as additional directors to its board, taking the board count to 11 members.
This came a day after Cyrus Mistry was removed from the post of Tata Group chairman and Ratan Tata took over as the interim chief.
"Dr Ralf Speth, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover, and Mr N Chandrasekaran, CEO & managing director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), have been appointed as additional directors on the Tata Sons Board," the company said in a statement.
Commenting on their appointment, Ratan Tata said: "This is in recognition of their exemplary leadership in their companies."
Both JLR and TCS have been most profitable companies of the group with most of revenues coming from the latter. Speth was appointed CEO from outside the group in February 2010, two years after the company was acquired by Tatas.
Chandrasekaran is a TCS veteran who grew up in the ranks of the company.
"Through these appointments the old tradition of Tata Sons of having CEOs of group firms on its board has been restored," a source said.
Krishna Kumar of Indian Hotels Co Ltd and JJ Irani of Tata Steel were notable members of Tata Sons board when Ratan Tata was at the helm of the group before he retired in 2012.
The present board of Tata Sons includes Tata himself, along with Cyrus Mistry, Venu Srinivasan, Ronen Sen, Nitin Nohria, Farida Khambhata and Ajay Piramal, among others.
On Monday, in a sudden and dramatic turn of events, Cyrus Mistry was sacked as chairman of the Tata Group and replaced by his predecessor Ratan Tata in the interim.
