Cyrus Mistry ran the Tata empire without carrying the Tata name
When Cyrus Mistry took charge of the Tata Group in 2012, he became only the second chairman in its history not named Tata. His family had owned a slice of the holding company since the 1930s. Four years later the board voted him out, igniting one of India's most bitter corporate legal battles.
Born in Bombay in 1968 into a Parsi construction dynasty, he was the younger son of billionaire Pallonji Mistry. His mother had been born in Ireland and his father took Irish citizenship, so Cyrus himself held an Irish passport and called himself a global citizen. He trained as a civil engineer at Imperial College London, later studied at London Business School, and joined the family firm Shapoorji Pallonji in 1991, where he is credited with reviving the struggling Afcons Infrastructure.
The family's link with Tata ran deep. His grandfather first bought into Tata Sons in the 1930s, and the resulting stake of roughly 18 percent was the largest held by any single party, although charitable trusts established by the Tata family controlled some 66 percent. One of his sisters married Noel Tata, half-brother of Ratan Tata. Cyrus joined the Tata Sons board in 2006 and, once chairman, also presided over Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services and other flagship companies.
His removal in October 2016 brought Ratan Tata back temporarily and then Natarajan Chandrasekaran as chairman. Mistry alleged mismanagement; a company law tribunal sided with Tata Sons in 2018, but an appeals tribunal reinstated him in December 2019 and called Chandrasekaran's appointment illegal. The Supreme Court stayed that order in January 2020 and ultimately upheld his dismissal.
He died on 4 September 2022 when the car taking him back to Mumbai hit a divider on a highway bridge. Investigators blamed a poorly designed stretch of road and the fact that the rear passengers were not belted. The crash prompted national debate, and the government announced fines for back-seat passengers who go without seat belts.
Source: Cyrus Mistry
