Titan had just 3 CEOs in 40 years. Who will be the fourth?

On Friday, the Tata radical institution granted a 2nd word of 14 months to C.K. Venkataraman till the extremity of December 2025. Venkataraman, who took implicit arsenic CEO connected 1 October 2019, turns 65, the group's status age, connected 30 October adjacent year.

Three interior candidates -- Ajoy Chawla, CEO of jewellery business, Suparna Mitra, CEO of watches and wearables, and Saumen Bhaumik, CEO of eyecare concern -- would beryllium evaluated by Titan's 13-member committee successful the coming months, an enforcement alert of the plans said.

Chawla, whose concern fetched 81% of Titan’s gross successful FY24, is the front-runner, 2 different executives said. Earlier, Venkataraman excessively had headed the jewellery concern earlier taking implicit arsenic CEO.

However, if the committee entrusts Mitra, who heads a part that accounted for 8.2% of revenue, she would beryllium the archetypal pistillate CEO successful Titan's four-decade journey.

An email and connection sent to a spokesperson of Titan connected Saturday remained unanswered.

"This improvement (CEO being fixed a 2nd 14-month term) does people the commencement of the succession readying workout due to the fact that the incumbent CEO won't beryllium astir successful 2026," said Amit Tandon, laminitis and managing manager astatine Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IiAS), a proxy advisory firm.

In the past, Titan has announced a successor months earlier the incumbent's word ended. On 1 February 2019, Titan informed the exchanges that Venkataraman would instrumentality implicit from his predecessor Bhaskar Bhat from 1 October of that year. Bhat himself was appointed lawman managing manager connected 1 May 2001, eleven months earlier helium succeeded Xerxes Desai arsenic CEO connected 1 April 2002.

Titan’s archetypal CEO Desai had a 16-year tenure, from 3 January 1986 until 31 March 2002, followed by Bhat, whose 19-year stint was the longest, betwixt 1 April 2002 and 30 September 2019. Under Bhat’s watch, Titan’s gross jumped from ₹700 crore to ₹15,000 crore.

"Now, if Titan has bully succession planning, the question oregon reflection to inquire is, what Titan is doing should ideally beryllium happening astatine different companies. Identifying leaders aboriginal and past grooming them is the starting point," said Tandon.

Over the past 5 years, Venkataraman has steered the institution to triple its revenue, adjacent arsenic its marketplace headdress jumped from $12 cardinal to $37.6 cardinal astatine the extremity of Friday.

Titan, which started arsenic Titan Watches, a associated task betwixt Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corp. (TIDCO) and the Tatas successful 1984, began making watches successful 1987. Titan had ₹19.14 crore successful income successful the twelvemonth ended June 1988, the archetypal afloat twelvemonth of commercialized operations, erstwhile it sold 3.4 lakh watches. Profit totalled ₹21 lakh.

Titan, which declared its fourth-quarter and full-year net past Friday, reported a 22.8% leap from the year-ago play to extremity with ₹47,501 crore successful gross successful FY24. Profit improved 6.8% to ₹3,496 crore.

Promoter holding successful Titan stood astatine 52.90% astatine the extremity of March 2024, including 27.88% by TIDCO and 25.02% by Tata Sons and a fewer Tata radical firms. The worth of Tata’s shares successful Titan stands astatine ₹78,529 crore ($9.4 billion), arsenic Titan was valued astatine ₹3,13,868 crore ($37.6 billion) astatine the extremity of 3 May.

Both Bhat and Venkataraman launched caller concern divisions during their tenures, including eyewear and perfumes. But jewellery remains its mainstay, and its stock (80.7% of the company’s revenue) is akin to what it was astatine the extremity of September 2019, erstwhile the incumbent CEO took over.

Tandon, who served arsenic 1 of the bankers erstwhile Titan went public, credits galore of the company's occurrence stories to Desai. "Desai was a large and visionary manager. I retrieve Desai telling maine that galore of the Swiss jewellery firms became watchmakers and that Titan volition spell the different way, from watches to high-end watches and into the jewellery business."