He ran the Tata Group for more than two decades and died in 2024. What Indians remember first is not the scale of the ambition but the fact that nobody seriously questioned his integrity, which in a business career that long is close to unheard of.

The century-old salt-to-software conglomerate went global under him. Tetley, Corus, Jaguar Land Rover — an Indian company buying British icons, which upset a certain kind of commentator considerably. He also pushed the Nano, a serious attempt to build a car cheap enough for a family currently riding a scooter. It did not work commercially. It was still worth trying.

He measured success not only in market value, but in whether the institution deserved the country's trust.

The structure underneath is what made him unusual. Philanthropic trusts hold a large share of the group, so a meaningful slice of the profit goes to education, healthcare and research by design rather than goodwill. He said business owes the country something, and then arranged the ownership so it had to.

He lived modestly, skipped the billionaire theatre almost entirely, and spent his later years mentoring founders half his age. In an era of extremely loud wealth, that quiet is the part younger Indian entrepreneurs still say they want to copy.

Ratan Tata studied architecture at Cornell University and returned to India in 1962 to join the family group, starting on the shop floor at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur. He became chairman of Tata Sons in 1991, the year India opened its economy, succeeding J. R. D. Tata. His early years were spent bringing the group's semi-independent companies under a common strategy and a shared brand.

The car business was personal. Tata Motors launched the Indica in 1998, among the first passenger cars designed and built largely in India, and the Nano followed in 2008 with a target price of one lakh rupees. The same year Tata bought Jaguar Land Rover from Ford, a deal widely doubted at the time that later became one of the group's most important businesses. Tata Consultancy Services, listed in 2004, grew into the group's largest earner.

He stepped down in 2012, handing over to Cyrus Mistry, and returned as interim chairman after Mistry's removal in 2016, a dispute that went to the Supreme Court before N. Chandrasekaran took charge in 2017. In retirement he invested personally in start-ups including Ola, Paytm and Urban Company. He received the Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and died in Mumbai on 9 October 2024, aged 86.