R Gopalakrishnan, vice chairman

R Gopalakrishnan is executive director of Tata Sons, vice chairman of Tata Chemicals and chairman of Rallis India and of Advinus Therapeutics. He is a director on the boards of several Tata companies, among them Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Teleservices.

A key member of the Tata Group Corporate Centre, Mr Gopalakrishnan plays a vital role in providing direction and impetus to the Group's forays into potentially viable areas of the new economy.

Mr Gopalakrishnan joined Hindustan Lever (now Hindustan Unilever) as a management trainee in 1967. In 1987, he joined the company’s management committee as executive director of exports. In 1991, he was appointed chairman of Unilever Arabia, based in Jeddah, to establish and manage Unilever's consumer products business in Arab countries.

On his return to India in 1995, Mr Gopalakrishnan was appointed managing director of Brooke Bond Lipton. After the company's merger with HLL, he was designated vice chairman of Hindustan Lever. After 31 years with Hindustan Lever, Mr Gopalakrishnan joined Tata Sons in September 1998 as executive director.

A graduate in physics from Calcutta University, Mr Gopalakrishnan also has a degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He has been president of the All India Management Association and is involved with education through his board memberships of a school and two management colleges. Mr Gopalakrishnan is the author of The Case of the Bonsai Manager, published by Penguin India in 2007.