Naval Tata

Naval Hormusji Tata (30 August 1904 – 5 May 1989) was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist who worked for the Tata Group. He was the adopted son of Sir Ratan Tata, and the father of Ratan, Jimmy and Noel Tata.

Early life Naval was born in Surat on 30 August 1904 to a middle-class Parsi family. His father, Hormusji Tata, belonged to a distant branch of the extended Tata family. Hormusji's grandfather, Navroji Tata, was the second-cousin of Jamsetji Tata. Both of them are descended from Bhika Tata. Thus, he was a Tata by birth. His mother was Ratanbai née Rao, daughter of Cooverbai Rao née Daboo, the sister of Hirabai Tata née Daboo, wife of Tata group founder Jamsetji Tata.

Hormusji was a spinning master in the Advanced Mills at Ahmedabad and died in 1908 Both sons never married or had children. The couple separated in the mid-1940s.

Naval later married Simone Dunoyer, a businesswoman from Switzerland, they got married in 1955. Noel Tata is their son.

Over the years he became chairman of the other textile mills and the three electric companies. From an active director he later became the Deputy Chairman of Tata Sons. He was directly responsible for the management of the three Tata electric companies, the four textile mills and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. He was the longest serving colleague and close associate of JRD Tata on board of Tata Sons.

Other activities Naval Tata went on to become an internationally recognised authority in labour relations, becoming a member of the International Labour Organization's governing body in 1949. He was founder of ILO's family planning programme. He served as Chairman of the Indian Cancer Society for over 30 years. The same year he was given recognition for his role in industrial peace and awarded the Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal. He was conferred the life membership of the National Institute of Personnel Management.

Memorials Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management has named the Sports Management Department as The Naval Tata Centre of Excellence in Sports Management in his memory. Naval Tata Memorial Lecture is organised by National Institute of Personnel Management every year in his memory since 1992. In 2004, the Tata group organised 'The Century of Trust' exhibition in various cities jointly in memory of Jamsetji Tata, JRD Tata and Naval Tata. Employers' Federation of India launched the 'Naval Tata Institute for Training in Industrial Relations' in 2014 as a memorial to him. In 1999 a book in his memory Naval Tata remembered was published containing compilation of letters, writings, speeches of Naval. In 2019, Government of Odisha, Tata Steel & Tata Trusts (Hockey Ace foundation) launched Hockey HPC in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. It was named as Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre to pay tribute to Naval Tata for his significant contribution in development of Hockey in India.