Ratan Naval Tata (born 28 December 1937) is an Indian industrialist, philanthropist, and a former chairman of Tata Sons. He was also chairman of Tata Group, from 1990 to 2012, and again, as interim chairman, from October 2016 through February 2017, and continues to head its charitable trusts. He is the recipient of two of the highest civilian awards of India, the Padma Vibhushan (2008) and Padma Bhushan (2000). He is well known for his business ethics and philanthropy.
Born in 1937, he is a scion of the Tata family, and great-grandson of Jamsetji Tata, the founder of Tata Group. He is an alumnus of the Cornell University College of Architecture. He joined his company in 1961, and was the apparent successor to J. R. D. Tata upon the latter's retirement in 1991. During Ratan Tata's chairmanship of 21 years, revenues grew over 40 times, and profit, over 50 times. He boldly got Tata Tea to acquire Tetley, Tata Motors to acquire Jaguar Land Rover, and Tata Steel to acquire Corus, in an attempt to turn Tata from a largely India-centric group into a global business.