Tata Sons, promoter of Tata companies, appointed top ranked investment strategist Farida Khambata as the first woman independent director in the company's 103-year history. With the appointment of Khambata, global strategist at emerging markets-focused investment firm Cartica Capital, Tata Sons' board has expanded to seven members.
Cartica Capital, set up by former executives of International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of World Bank, that manages assets worth over $2.6 billion, has investments in TTK Prestige, Page Industries (the Indian franchise of Jockey International), Ratnakar Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services in India. Khambata had joined Cartica from IFC where she last held the position of regional VP in charge of operations in East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Khambata's appointment indicates Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry's increased preference for new and external faces on the company's board, a shift from the past where most of its directors were Tata Group executives. Earlier, Tata Sons directors were also part of the group executive council that provided strategic and operational support to then Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata. Now the Tata Sons board and the group executive council have separate members under Mistry.
At present, besides two Tata executives, Ishaat Hussain and R Gopalakrishnan, the rest on the Tata Sons board are external members - Khambata, Ronen Sen, Vijay Singh and Nitin Nohria. While Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School and Singh, former defence secretary, were appointed as independent directors, Sen, former ambassador to US, was appointed along with Khambata.
