By this appointment of both daughters of Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata, all his children are now found on smaller of the Tata Trusts. Leah, 39 and her sister Maya, 36 were asked to serve on the board of trustees of Sir Ratan Tata Industrial Institute, SRTI, a part of Sir Ratan Tata Trust as reported in an Indian national daily.

Economic Times in its report mentions that Maya and Leah Tata have taken over as trustees of SRTII from Arnaz Kotwal and Freddy Talati who have resigned.

While Ratan Tata passed in October 2022 _, Noel Tata is the newly appointed chairperson of Tata Trust, and he has three children: Leah, (39), Maya (36), Neville (32).

Is There a Rift Following This Transition?

According to the report, the outgoing trustee Arnaz Kotwal complained about her resignation to make way for the incoming trustees.

With considerable thought, I am now in Dubai, where I was generously compelled to accede to Burji's request, but was very saddened that none of you reached out to speak with me about this,” ET quoted her as saying, as per her letter addressed to the Fellow trustees. "I was very annoyed and quite saddened” “If Burji may recall, once, in SRTI I sent a request to execute a document. It was aimed to extend copyright protection to SRTI. I am inside a conversation with a stranger, directed by his chief executive officer, Sidharth Sharma, being their SRTI focal point, to which neither of them has a link”.

Tata’s Trusts has also refrained from commenting upon the matter at hand until now.

Two active members in the Trust, Leah and Maya Tata were appointed as the trustees by the board of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, ‘more so because of their active participation’ said an official in the know of things. The SRTT can appoint three of a total of six directors of SRTII as per the provisions of the Trust Deed. Replacing, Freddy Talati, who has resigned and joined NCPA and Arnaz Kotwal relocated to Dubai and is now working at VFS Global, was Leah and Maya.

Noel Tata along with other board members such as Vijay Singh, Venu Srinivasan, Darius Khambata, Jehangir H. Jehangir, and Mehli Mistry, have unanimously decided on electing Leah and Maya into the board. The board was looking for candidates located in Mumbai and who already had experience working in SRTII, because that would help in the renovations and bring a SRT to life once more.

Established in 1928 with the aid of Lady Navajbai Tata and the Stri Zarthostri Mandal, SRTII works toward empowering women with skill sets, like cooking and tailoring as well as sewing and Montessori. The inclusion of Leah and Maya Tata brings new ideas to use,being from the millennial generation, this is a step to preparing them to take on bigger roles within the Tata group.

Before assuming a position at The Indian Hotels, Leah Tata had obtained a marketing masters degree from the IE Business School. A part of Tata Digital currently, Maya Tata used to work with Tata Capital at the start of her work career, and now works on the Tata Neu app while transitioning to a new role.

Their predecessors, Freddy Talati and Arnaz Kotwal, following her term as VP-legal in Indian hotels, Talati serves as COO of NCPA while Kotwal serves as VFS Global’s general counsel.