Naval Tata

Tata was born in Surat on 30 August 1904 to Hormusji Tata, a spinning master at the Advanced Mills in Ahmedabad, and Ratanbai. His father died in 1908, and his mother moved to Navsari, supporting the family by embroidery. He spent part of his childhood at the J. N. Petit Parsi Orphanage in Bombay before being adopted at the age of thirteen by Navajbai, the widow of Sir Ratanji Tata.

He graduated in economics from the University of Bombay and took a short course in accountancy in London.

Tata joined Tata Sons in 1930 as a despatch clerk and assistant secretary. He became secretary to the aviation department in 1933, moved to the textiles department in 1938, and was appointed joint managing director of Tata Mills in 1939. He was made a director of Tata Sons on 1 February 1941, managing director of Tata Mills in 1947 and of the Tata Oil Mills Company in 1948, later becoming chairman of Ahmedabad Advance Mills and deputy chairman of Tata Sons.

From 1949 he sat on the governing body of the International Labour Organization, to which he was elected thirteen times over three decades. He founded the ILO's family planning programme and wrote reports on industrial harmony and wage problems between 1976 and 1982. He was a member of the labour panel of India's Planning Commission from 1966 and president of the Employers' Federation of India, which later made him president emeritus.

Tata co-founded the Indian Cancer Society in 1951 with Dr D. J. Jussawalla and chaired it for over thirty years. He was a trustee of several Tata philanthropic trusts and was associated with the Indian Institute of Science, the Bombay State Social Welfare Council and the National Safety Council.

He was president of the Indian Hockey Federation for fifteen years, a period covering India's Olympic gold medals in 1948, 1952 and 1956.

Tata was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1969, and in the same year received the Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal for his role in industrial peace. He held life membership of the National Institute of Personnel Management.

Institutions named after him include the Naval Tata Memorial Lecture, held annually by the National Institute of Personnel Management since 1992; the Naval Tata Institute for Training in Industrial Relations, launched by the Employers' Federation of India in 2014; and the Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre, opened in 2019.[2][3]