The book 'Leaders in the Making: The Crucibles of Changemakers in India' by Arvind N. Agrawal and T.V. Rao, which looks at Cyrus Mistry as a leader is due for release on September 12. One of the persons quoted in the book spoke to Business Today soon after the death of the former Tata Sons chairman.
"I just woke up to hear about the sad demise of Mistry," said a shocked N S Rajan from New York. Rajan had worked closely with Mistry for almost 4 years at the Tata Sons.
Rajan, who was heading the Tata Group’s Human Resources function, had quit within days of Cyrus Mistry being ousted from the group. "I was in touch with him almost every fortnight for the last three-four years," says Rajan.
"We last spoke in August. It was a normal chat. I actually regularly kept him briefed about things at my end," says Rajan.
"I went to his home a few months back. I had told him about the book 'Leaders in the Making' written by Arvind Agrawal. It is getting published soon," he added.
Rajan has spoken at length about Cyrus in the book as one of the leaders he admires.
Rajan was the first hire of Mistry when he was about to take over as chairman of Tata Sons. "He had heard of me and he called me over - it was out of the blue. He had read one of my articles on organisational designs and was interested in knowing more," he says.
"The first meeting had gone on for an hour-and-a-half. Initially, I thought the meeting was for some consultancy assignment as I was heading the global people advisory practise at EY India," says Rajan.
Rajan was overseeing operations in some 50 countries in five continents and Tata with a global network of companies needed someone with Rajan's calibre to manage the multi-cultural workforce.
"I didn't apply. Mistry kept calling me for meetings and we had 4-5 meetings till I realised that he wanted to hire me," he says.
Rajan had joined as a member of the Group Executive Council and Group Chief Human Resources Officer at Tata Sons.
Mistry died in a road accident in Maharashtra's Palghar area on Sunday. The accident took place when he was returning from a Parsi religious function. Mistry, 54, was travelling from Ahmedabad to Mumbai.
Also read: ‘He had a passion for life’: Tata Sons’ N Chandrasekaran condoles Cyrus Mistry’s death