Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Tata Sons chairperson, is all ready to make his major appointment after taking over the lead job at the largest multinational in India.
Chandrasekaran has specially selected Saurabh Agrawal—an expert investment banking rainmaker—to be the then Tata Group CFO (Chief Financial Officer). Agrawal will be joining the company in July, following a year time with Aditya Birla Group—where he supervised the Jaypee’s cement assets acquisition by Ultratech and the multi-billion Idea–Vodafone merger.
Being an IIM Kolkata alumnus, Agrawal is presently the strategy head at Aditya Birla Group.
Moreover, it will also be first time such Group CFO position is been produced. So far, Ishaat Hussain, veteran Tata hand, was handling the Finance Director position of the group; however, in 2012, he bid adieu to executive functions and since then is a non-active member of the Tata Sons board. However, he will take off after turning 70, later this year.
Agrawal expressed his enthusiasm of joining the $103-Billion company by saying, “I am pleased to connect to the Tata Group. It is a great time for the group under Mr. Chandrasekaran’s leadership, and I looking further to contribute to the profitable growth of the company utilizing my corporate finance experience.”
In 1995, Agrawal started his career and since then has worked with various strands of corporate strategy and execution comprising numerous industries. Agrawal held the position of the Corporate Finance Unit Head of Standard Chartered Bank in South Asia and India before switching to India Inc.
In a statement, Chandrasekaran said that Agrawal is brimming with high knowledge of capital markets and important cross-industry understanding which he is bringing to this vital leadership role in the company. His proficiency will help the company in driving investment management, capital allocation decisions as well as amalgamation and optimization of the company’s business portfolio. Chandrasekaran looking further for his role he will be playing in boosting the financial performance of the company.
Tata onlookers said that Agrawal was an adviser of Chandrasekaran having guided TCS in 2004 on its public offer along with guidance on few acquisitions such as Citigroup’s captive business process outsourcing unit acquisition by TCS in 2008.