Successive generations of leaders at Tata Steel have drawn guidance and inspiration from the purpose for which the Founder, Jamsetji Tata, created Tata Steel. Among them was Rustomji Hormusji Mody, who joined Tata Steel as an Office Assistant in 1939 and rose through its ranks to become its only Chairman and Managing Director in 1984, remaining at the helm of the Company till 1993, in a career spanning 53 years.

Loved, respected and trusted by all, especially the employees of Tata Steel and its communities, Mr Russi Mody passed away on 16th May, 2014.

Mr Mody, who was educated in England at Harrow School and later Christ Church College, Oxford, was hand-picked by the Late J R D Tata in 1953 to engender greater employee engagement and welfare at Tata Steel. During his tenure as Director, Personnel, the historic participative management agreement between Tata Steel and the Tata Workers’ Union was signed in 1956. He became Managing Director of Tata Steel in 1974 and on 23rd October, 1984 he was appointed its Chairman and Managing Director.

Mr Mody felt a close connect with Jamsetji Tata’s vision, Tata Steel’s social consciousness, the enlightened approach to the redistribution of wealth, and the priority placed on employee welfare and industrial harmony. Under Mr Mody’s leadership, Tata Steel came to be popularly known as “the company that also made steel”. He established formal mechanisms and processes for employee participation, economic well-being of communities and social inclusion that were watersheds in the history of Indian industry.

A great friend of the less privileged and marginalised, Mr Mody injected result-orientation in Tata Steel’s social welfare programme with the formation of societies for rural development and tribal welfare. His dream was to prepare the communities to become self-reliant. Mr Mody also devoted his efforts towards excellence and promoted “Sports as a way of life” across all Tata Steel’s communities.

A veritable people’s person, Mr Mody’s compelling sincerity and strong will, both in the service of the Company and humanity, contributed to 50 years of industrial harmony at Tata Steel and a great depth of managerial talent at the Company. He received the Padma Bhushan in 1989 for his exemplary contribution to industry.

An astute, intuitive and incisive businessman, he took the capacity of the Company from eight-lakh tonnes in 1974 to almost 2.5 million tonnes by 1992-93. Much before the rest of the industry, Mr Mody foresaw the need for change. He instituted ‘vision building’ at Tata Steel, heralded its largest modernisation programme from the early 1980s and oversaw its technological transformation. He simultaneously launched the quality movement at Tata Steel. A believer in judiciously preparing for the future, Mr Mody laid the foundation of an enterprise of tomorrow, enthusing its people to restructure and re-engineer it with a compelling vision for the next millennium.

Tata Steel pays its tribute at the passing away of this iconic leader.