S. Padmanabhan
Chairman (Non-Executive, Non-Independent Director)
Mr. Padmanabhan is the Chairman of the Board of Tata Chemicals Limited, Rallis India Ltd and a Director on the Board of The Associated Building Company Limited, Director on the Board of Malcolm Baldrige Foundation, Member of the Governing Council of Tata Affirmative Action Program and a Member of the Advisory Committee of Center for Wisdom in Leadership at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research. He is a Trustee in the AI-171 Memorial and Welfare Trust.
Mr. Padmanabhan has served as a Director on the Boards of TCS, Tata Power and its subsidiary companies, Infiniti Retail (Croma) and Tata Singapore Airlines Ltd. (Vistara) and as the Chairman of Tata Consulting Engineers.
Mr. Padmanabhan's career with the Tata Group companies began with Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) in 1982. He retired in 2023 from Tata Sons Private Ltd., a career spanning 41 years.
During his distinguished career with the Tata Group, he has held several responsible roles.
He was the Chairman of the Governing Council of Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG). At TBExG, he was responsible for enabling the Business Excellence journey across the Tata companies globally. This role is integral to Group initiatives in enhancing the performance of Tata companies through diagnostics, benchmarking and sharing best practices. Under his leadership, TBExG helped companies leverage data, process, social and safety excellence.
Prior to this, Mr. Padmanabhan was the Group Chief Human Resources Officer at Tata Sons Limited and was responsible for enabling key HR policies and initiatives across the Tata Group.
During the period 2008-2014, he was Executive Director - Operations, Tata Power, and was responsible for the profitable and sustainable operations of thermal and hydro generation plants across India and transmission & distribution systems in Mumbai. Apart from the Tata Power Board, he was on the boards of operating subsidiaries of Tata Power.
Before joining Tata Power, he was Executive Director, Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS). During his 26-year stint at TCS, he held roles such as Executive Director of Human Resources, Head of Application Development and Maintenance, Head of Airlines Practice, Country Manager TCS Switzerland, Head of Delivery Centre in Chennai. As the Executive Director of HR at TCS, he was responsible for managing over 100,000 employees worldwide. During his tenure, TCS achieved the highest retention rates. He set up scalable and sustainable processes to make TCS a learning-focused organization, capable of seamlessly integrating thousands of new employees each year. He significantly strengthened the industry-academia relation with various Indian and international institutes.
He was the founding CEO of Aviation Software Development Consultancy, a Joint Venture between TCS and Singapore Airlines.
Mr. Padmanabhan played a pivotal role in overseeing the $1 billion TCS IPO - engaging with multiple stakeholders and financial institutions across the globe to make this IPO one of the most successful ones in the Indian corporate history. His wide international portfolio as a senior executive on a global platform encompasses project management, customer, and global workforce management. He has represented TCS in several external forums.
With a distinguished academic record in the technical and management domain from reputable institutions, Mr. Padmanabhan is a Glaxo Marketing Scholar Medalist, Gold Medalist and Distinguished Alumnus from IIM Bangalore, Gold Medalist and Distinguished Alumnus from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore. He has completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He is a life member of Computer Society of India.
S. Padmanabhan