Date: Thursday Jun 14th
Location: DV Lounge
Time: 11am-12pm

Speaker bio:
R. Gopalakrishnan is executive director of Tata Sons, chairman of Rallis India and vice-chairman of Tata Chemicals. He is a director of several Tata Group companies such as Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Internet Services. He also serves on the board of two non-Tata companies, ICI and Castrol India.

A key member of the Tata Group Executive Office, 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 (HLL) as a management trainee in 1967. In 1987, he joined HLL’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, he 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 HLL, he joined Tata Sons in August, 1998.

A graduate in physics from Calcutta University, Mr. Gopalakrishnan also has a degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

His recently published book, The Case of the Bonsai Manager: Lessons from Nature on Growing (Penguin India, 2007) is about nature, management and intuitive leadership.