Noel’s children come on board Tata Trust entity

MUMBAI: Signalling their ascent to the century-old Tata system, Noel Tata’s children —Leah (37), Maya (34) and Neville (30) have been appointed as trustees of Tata Medical Center Trust (TMCT), which manages a cancer care hospital in Kolkata. This is also the first time the millennial generation has been inducted into the board of a Tata philanthropic organisation.
The appointments of Noel’s children, who have been involved in the Tata Group for many years, were approved by Tata Trusts chairman and Noel’s older half-brother Ratan Tata. At present, Leah works with Indian Hotels Company (Taj Hotels), Maya with Tata Digital (which recently launched Tata Neu app) and Neville with Trent (which owns Westside and Zudio stores).

With their induction to the board of TMCT, the number of trustees has been increased to six. Ratan Tata (84) is the chairman, while Vijay Singh (74) and Mehli Mistry (62) are the other two trustees. Tata Trusts’s flagship foundation Sir Dorabji Tata Trust had endowed Rs 500 crore for the Kolkata cancer care centre. The hospital was inaugurated by Ratan Tata in May 2011.
Almost all the current trustees of TMCT as well asSir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust (the other two key foundations within Tata Trusts) are over the age of 60. Noel joined the board of Sir Ratan Tata Trust at the age of 63 in 2019. Three years later, he was appointed as a trustee of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.
While Sir Dorabji Tata Trust started the Kolkata cancer care centre, external parties too have financially supported the hospital. TMCT is now self-sustaining and no longer dependent on funds from Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, a person in know said.
Leah, a product of Jai Hind College, Mumbai, and IE Business School, Madrid, joined Indian Hotels Company in 2007. Currently, she is part ofthe company’s real estate and development team. Her younger sister Maya, an alumna of University of Warwick, and Bayes Business School, both in the UK, is working with Tata Digital after a stint in Tata Capital. Neville, also a product of Bayes Business School, joined Trent — a company founded by his grandmother Simone Tata — in 2016.
Currently, a business manager, Neville leads operations for Zudio stores across west and south India. While the millennial generation of the Tata family have been working their way up the Tata system, they, like their father Noel, have maintained a low profile and have been shied away from giving media interviews.