Tata Trusts appoints new CEO: Srinath Narasimhan takes charge on April 1

Tata Trusts on Wednesday announced that its trustees have appointed a new chief, Srinath Narasimhan, who will be the CEO of the Trusts from April 1, 2020. Narasimhan is not a new face to the execs as he had served at various roles within the company before being appointed as the CEO.

Narasimhan is currently the Managing Director of Tata Teleservices Limited, which sold its business to Bharti Airtel for free and also made good on its 6,000 crore debt - a rare sight in the corporate world. Narasimhan had joined Tata Administrative Services (TAS) in 1986 and held various roles in the Tata group, including the post of Managing Director of Tata Communications Limited.

Narasimhan was born on July 8, 1962, and holds a mechanical engineer degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and an MBA from IIM, Calcutta. Narasimhan's entire career has been at the Tata group. The appointment comes after R Venkataramanan stepped down from his role as managing trustee of Tata Trusts last year.

As the CEO of Tata Trusts, Narasimhan will have the same powers as the managing trustee. For almost a year now, Ratan Tata along with a group of officials ran operations at Tata Trusts.

Another big change in the upper management was observed. The trustees announced that Pramit Jhaveri, former Chief Executive Officer of Citi India and former Vice Chairman of banking, capital markets and advisory for Asia Pacific, has been appointed as a Trustee of the Dorabji Tata Trust - the biggest trust in the Tata Trusts. Jhaveri will be taking up this new role from February 12.

Tata Trusts is a philanthropic organisation which controls around 66 percent of Tata Sons.

Challenging times

The change in the upper management comes at a crucial time as the Tata Trusts face litigation with income tax department over tax status and its involvement in the legal dispute between Tata Group's former Chairman, Cyrus Mistry and group patriarch, Ratan Tata, in the Supreme Court.

In October last year, the IT department cancelled the registration of six allied trusts, including Jamsetji Tata Trust, RD Tata Trust, Tata Education Trust, Tata Social Welfare Trust, Sarvajanik Seva Trust and Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust. The reason for the cancellation was cited as the violation of section 13 of IT Act, which prohibits a trust from holding shares of a company.