I keep in mind assembly N Chandrasekaran, then CEO of Tata Consultancy Companies, after a post-earnings interview someday in late-2009 or 2010. On the finish of the dialog, my colleague requested him what he did to unwind. Chandra, as he’s greatest recognized, spoke a few latest trekking vacation (Nepal, if reminiscence serves proper). The journey lasted a few week. Something longer than that, Chandrasekaran stated, and he would get stressed and wish to get again to work.
It’s a reporter’s diary anecdote from greater than 15 years in the past, and a few particulars have inevitably blurred. However his reply stayed with me: Chandra likes being in movement. Once I interviewed him once more in 2020, one other philosophy caught. I do not consider you must preserve two separate to-do lists for private {and professional} life, he stated. You have to have one record and maintain it quick. That philosophy feels notably related now.
Chandrasekaran has determined to not search one other time period as Tata Sons chairman when his present tenure ends on February 20, 2027. So, after greater than 40 years {of professional} life on the Tata Group, what goes on Chandra’s record subsequent?
There isn’t any indication but that Chandrasekaran has settled on what comes subsequent. However listed below are 5 prospects.
1. Construct a Ramadorai/Nilekani-style institutional second act
Maybe Chandra’s most consequential second act wouldn’t be one other company job in any respect. From 1997 to 1999, Chandrasekaran labored as S Ramadorai’s executive assistant, a interval throughout which he was uncovered to buyer administration, operations, and growth earlier than finally succeeding Ramadorai as TCS CEO in 2009. Ramadorai didn’t precisely retire after TCS both. Now 81, he chairs Karmayogi Bharat, the government-backed organisation on the coronary heart of Mission Karmayogi’s civil-service capacity-building effort, and chairs the board of PRS Legislative Research. It affords an attention-grabbing template: transfer from working an enormous know-how firm to making use of these working expertise elsewhere.
Nandan Nilekani affords one other template: he moved from the Infosys CEO function to develop into the founding chairman of UIDAI and lead the early years of Aadhaar. The Centre has continued to name on him for public assignments, most not too long ago to lead a high-powered task force on examination reforms.
Chandra may mix components of each. A authorities mission, an instructional establishment, a know-how board, or maybe an organisation of his personal centered on training, skilling or superior manufacturing. There are clues from his TCS years that such work could go well with him. Chandrasekaran was the chief architect of TCS iON, launched in 2011 as a cloud-based, pay-per-use platform for Indian small and medium companies earlier than increasing into training, recruitment, and assessments.
Passport Seva additionally scaled nationally throughout his tenure as TCS CEO. The venture itself predated him as CEO, with TCS chosen because the service supplier in 2008, however the pilots started in Could 2010 and all 77 Passport Seva Kendras have been operational by June 2012.
Siddharth Pai, CEO and Managing Director of Sahasranshu Applied sciences, went even additional not too long ago, posting on X that Chandrasekaran needs to be introduced into authorities as a senior minister by means of lateral entry. Whether or not Chandra needs a proper authorities function is frankly not recognized.
2. Again founders, like Ratan Tata did
There may be one other precedent a lot nearer to Bombay Home. After stepping down as Tata Sons chairman, Ratan Tata grew to become some of the recognisable particular person backers of India’s startup ecosystem, assembling a broad investment portfolio that included Ola, Paytm, Snapdeal, City Ladder, BlueStone, FirstCry, and CarDekho, amongst a number of others. His portfolio additionally included YourStory, the place Ratan Tata participated in our 2015 funding round alongside Kalaari Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and TV Mohandas Pai.
Ratan Tata
Chandra’s model of startup investing may look very totally different. One may think about him gravitating in the direction of AI, deeptech, superior manufacturing, semiconductors, enterprise software program or local weather infrastructure. India has loads of individuals who can write cheques. Far fewer have managed lots of of hundreds of workers, labored with governments and international prospects, overseen multi-billion-dollar capex programmes and navigated a number of know-how cycles.
For a founder making an attempt to scale from startup to establishment, Chandra’s working knowledge may very well be invaluable.
3. Take cost of an India-scale AI mission
If public service is just too broad, one imagines Chandra being given one particular mission: nationwide AI infrastructure. On the India AI Affect Summit earlier this 12 months, Chandra described AI as an infrastructure of intelligence and argued that the core mission needs to be placing AI instruments within the fingers of each citizen. He brings a uncommon view throughout a lot of the stack. TCS provides him the software program and enterprise lens, Tata Electronics provides him publicity to semiconductor fabrication, and the group’s energy and infrastructure arms sit beneath the large bodily calls for of compute.
Chandrasekaran himself has described India’s AI opportunity as spanning chips, programs, power and functions. India already has the IndiaAI Mission, semiconductor programmes, and digital public infrastructure. The problem now’s execution: connecting chips, energy, algorithms, and expertise to drive mass adoption. A time-bound nationwide mission with exhausting deliverables may match Chandra’s wiring higher than sitting on advisory committees.
4. Develop into a personal fairness working companion
World personal fairness corporations more and more want operators who can do rather more than sit on funding committees. They want individuals who can remodel companies, allocate capital, construct administration groups, and take care of technological disruption. Few executives have Chandra’s breadth. He has run a worldwide IT companies big and subsequently chaired companies spanning aviation, metal, vehicles, energy, lodges, electronics and client items.
Former HUL CEO Sanjiv Mehta, who watched Chandra carefully as an Air India board member, as soon as famous on LinkedIn that Chandra thinks massive, acts massive, and has an amazing bias for execution. A world PE agency may hand him a senior working mandate with monumental attain. The catch? Advising different individuals’s firms would possibly really feel too passive for a pacesetter who spent 4 many years holding the operational steering wheel.
5. Run another massive firm
We’d even be overcomplicating this: Chandra may merely tackle one other massive working function. At 63, he has loads of runway left when his Tata Sons time period finishes in February 2027.
Discovering a canvas equal to Tata Sons is the exhausting half. Taking cost of a traditional single-business firm may signify a pointy narrowing of scope. It might take an distinctive project: an enormous international company mid-transformation or an formidable new industrial platform being constructed from scratch.
Ramadorai had recognized Chandra’s potential early and put him through roles spanning prospects, operations, gross sales and worldwide growth earlier than handing him the TCS baton. A full-scale working function often is the easiest option to maintain a stressed operator in movement.
What goes on Chandra’s record?
There may be additionally no indication but of which, if any, of those paths Chandra would possibly select. Additionally, there’s nonetheless important work to complete at Bombay Home earlier than February 2027. Air India’s transformation stays advanced, the group’s semiconductor and battery bets are in construct phases, and Tata Sons has its personal succession transition to navigate. The compelling query shouldn’t be whether or not he has choices, however the place the following decade of his working life can obtain the best leverage.
Greater than 15 years after that dialog about trekking, I nonetheless keep in mind the thought behind Chandra’s reply. Every week away was sufficient. He wished to get again to work. After 40 years with the Tatas, his record is about to get significantly shorter. Do not anticipate it to remain clean for lengthy.
