Tata Group veteran and Colaba resident Eruch Kapadia (pictured) has taken over as the chief financial officer (CFO) at Tata Sons (TS), the holding company of the Tata Group. The chartered accountant and cost accountant will take over from Farokh Subedar, the recently superannuated chief operating officer (COO) of the company and report to group CFO Saurabh Agrawal. Kapadia was .jpg)
a vice president in the finance function at TS and has served as an audit committee member of Tata Business Support Services. Prior to joining TS, he served Tata Chemicals (TC) in various capacities for over 18 years and is on boards of some of the Tata companies, according to news reports. Quoting a "top Tata official,” The Economic Times (ET) of September 24, 2017 said that Kapadia "was handpicked by former finance director (Ishaat) Hussain” from TC in 2007 to work under Subedar.
Subedar will continue as financial advisor to Agrawal, the ET report said. TS has split the erstwhile COO’s role that included finance and company secretarial functions. Secretarial functions will be handled by Suprakash Mukhopadhyay, who was handpicked by TS chairman N. Chandrasekaran. Unlike former group finance directors Noshir Soonawala or Hussain, "none of the appointees, including Agrawal, are on the board of TS,” stated the report. Kapadia declined a request from Parsiana for an interview as the Group’s external communications policy did not allow him to do so.
One hundred years after it was incorporated as a private limited company on November 8, 1917, TS is once again a private limited company, having been deemed a public company in May 1975, because of a change in the then Companies Act. In the first annual general meeting (AGM) of the company since Chandrasekaran took over as Group chairman, on September 22, 80% of the 
shareholders voted in favor of turning it into a private limited company. There was "vehement opposition” from previous Group chairman Cyrus Mistry’s family firms that own an 18% stake in TS, reported the on-line ET of the same day. Due to this move, Mistry’s Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group will not be able to sell its minority stake in TS without board approval. Mistry had a fall out with the former TS chairman Ratan Tata. At the AGM, shareholders also voted to strengthen corporate governance norms, including the appointment of a woman director, and having a board in which at least a third are independent directors. An alternate director can now be appointed if an independent director is overseas. The minimum board strength was increased from three to five.