Mistry’s big role

With the tragic loss of Cyrus Mistry, former chairman of Tata Sons, to a car accident on Sunday, we have lost a business leader once seen as a torch bearer of professional management in an India Inc. given heavily to clan-led control. His family long had a minority Tata stake, earning his father Pallonji Mistry, who passed away just this June, the sobriquet “Phantom of Bombay House”. But his appointment to the group’s top was not family succession. Nor did it prevent Mistry’s ouster, which he fought hard against before our apex court upheld the principal owners’ right to replace him. Whether his tenure as the Tata Group’s chief rejuvenated India’s most diversified conglomerate, however, is another matter. Hindsight points to a revival of Tata fortunes after Mistry’s departure, starting with a high-level reset of levers left all but rusty. Yet, the shake-up that resulted from his run-in with Tata Sons’ majority shareholders arguably did the group a good turn. The public glare it gave less-known issues of corporate governance and pressure on the Tata Group to get its strategic act together have worked to the advantage of Bombay House. Cyrus Mistry deserves credit for that.