A shy man who rarely features in the society glossies, Ratan Tata lives in a book crammed, dog-filled bachelor flat in Colaba and is considered to be a gentleman extraordinaire. The respect he commands amongst the political and business circuit is awesome…There is a saying that “No man can say ‘No’ to him”.

Born to Soonoo and Naval Hormusji Tata on December 28, 1937 in Bombay, he is presently the head honcho of the Tata Empire, India's largest conglomerate founded by Jamsedji Tata and consolidated and expanded by later generations of his family. After completing his BSc in structural engineering from Cornell University and an Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School, he joined the Tata Group in December 1962, after turning down a job with IBM on the advice of JRD Tata. He was first sent to Jamshedpur to work at Tata Steel. He worked on the floor along with other blue-collar employees, shoveling limestone and handling the blast furnaces. In 1991, he took over as group chairman from J.R.D. Tata, shuffling out the old guard and ushering in younger managers. Since then, he has been instrumental in reshaping the fortunes of the Tata Group, which today has the largest combined market capitalization on the Indian Stock Market.