Mumbai, May 22: Saurabh Agrawal, ace investment banker and head of corporate strategy at Aditya Birla Group, has been appointed the group chief financial officer of Tata Sons. This is the first major appointment by N. Chandrasekaran since he assumed charge as the chairman of the Tata group holding company earlier this year.
Agrawal will join Tata Sons from July.
Before Aditya Birla Group, Agrawal headed the corporate finance unit (India and South Asia) of Standard Chartered Bank and the investment banking division of DSP Merrill Lynch.
He will be the third investment banker to join the group after Ankur Verma (previously with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch) and Nipun Aggrawal of Standard Chartered Bank.
While Chandrasekaran took over the reins of the Tata group in February, these appointments indicate how the new chief is building his team and there could be more such announcements in the months ahead.
Earlier, Tata Sons had finance directors such as Ishaat Hussain and N.A. Soonawala on its board. Hussain was the finance director of Tata Sons from July 2000 to August 2012.
"He (Agrawal) brings in deep capital market knowledge and valuable cross-industry experience to this critical leadership role in the Tata group. His expertise will help us in driving rigour and synergy in capital allocation decisions, investment management as well as consolidation and optimisation of the group's business portfolio. We look forward to his contribution in driving financial performance of the group," Chandrasekaran said on the appointment.
"I am honoured to join the Tata group. It is an exciting time for the group under the leadership of Chandrasekaran, and I look forward to contributing to the group's profitable growth with my experience in corporate finance," Agrawal said.
Agrawal has over two decades of experience in the capital markets.
He had advised Tata Consultancy Services on its initial public offering in 2004.
Strong record
Starting his career in 1995, Agrawal has a strong record in both strategy and execution covering a wide range of industries.
A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and a post-graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, Agrawal played a key role in the merger of Vodafone India with Idea Cellular, besides the acquisition of the cement assets of Jaiprakash Associates by the AV Birla group.