Krishna Kumar appointed to Tata Sons board

mumbai: tata tea vice-chairman and indian hotels company ltd (taj group of hotels) managing director r.k. krishna kumar has been appointed as director to the tata sons board on wednesday. with mr ratan tata as the chairman, tata sons is the holding company of all the tata group companies. with the appointment, the strength of tata sons board has risen to 12.the other members include, ishaat hussain, r. gopalkrishnan, dr j.j. irani, pallonji mistry, n.a. soonawala, freddie mehta, farooq kawarana, j.e. talaulikar, b.g. deshmukh, j. sethna and shyamal gupta. mr krishna kumar had served the tata group companies for 38 years in various capacities. he was appointed as the managing director of tata tea in 1991, and subsequently moved to indian hotels as managing director in 1997. the crowning achievement of his leadership at tata tea was the successful bid for tetley, which catapulted the company into the position of the world's second largest tea company. indian hotels, under mr krishna kumar's leadership, has witnessed a significant re-structuring of its operations, in the process of which the premium taj brand has been substantially strengthened. mr krishna kumar joined the tata administrative service (tas) in 1963 and is also the chairman of tata tetley uk and a director on the boards of several other companies including tata industries, tata international and tata coffee. meanwhile, the tata group has clarified that tata group chairman ratan n. tata has stepped down from board of tata cellular and not btal. mr tata was not a director of btal.