Jamshedpur/Kolkata, March 31: TV Narendran, managing director, Tata Steel, has been elected chairman of CII Eastern Region, for the year 2016-17, while Umesh Chowdhary, vice-chairman and MD, Titagarh Group of Companies, has been elected the deputy chairman.
Their names were announced at the first meeting of the reconstituted Eastern Regional Council held in Kolkata recently.
Narendran, a mechanical engineer from REC (NIT), Trichy, became the managing director of Tata Steel, India and South East Asia, on November 1, 2013.
Narendran, who joined Tata Steel after completing MBA at IIM-Calcutta in 1988, is a Chevening Scholar, who also attended the Advanced Management Program in CEDEP-INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.
Narendran worked in Tata Steel International Trading Division from 1988 to 1997 where he spent five years in Dubai looking after Tata Steel�s exports to the Middle East.
From 1997 to 2001, he was with Tata Steel�s marketing and sales division and was involved in market development work for the Cold Rolling Mill Project, Supply Chain Management, Sales Planning, etc.
From 2001 to 2003, he was the chief of marketing & sales (Long Products) and played a key role in building the Tata Tiscon brand and its distribution network. From 2003 to 2005, Narendran worked with B Muthuraman, the then managing director of Tata Steel, as his principal executive officer.
Narendran was actively involved in the Tata Steel’s first overseas acquisition, NatSteel, and was seconded there as an executive vice-president in 2005. He ran operations in NatSteel thereafter as the deputy president (Operations) and took over as the president & CEO on January 1, 2008. He played a key role in the integration of NatSteel and Tata Steel.
Before being appointed managing director of Tata Steel, India and South East Asia, Narendran was the vice-president, Safety, Flat Products & Long Products Divisions of Tata Steel. During his stint in NatSteel, Narendran was a director on the Board of South East Asia Iron & Steel Institute (SEAISI). He served as the president of the ASEAN Iron & Steel Federation (AISIF) from 2007 to 2009, and was also the vice-chairman of the CII (India Business Forum) in Singapore.
Narendran sits on the boards of Tata Steel Limited, Tata Steel Europe, CEDEP, XLRI and World Steel Association.
Narendran is also Past Chairman of CII Jharkhand State Council.
Umesh Chowdhary, who is the vice-chairman and Managing Director of Titagarh Group of Companies, is a commerce graduate from Kolkata and has been the Honorary Consul of Switzerland in West Bengal since January 2011.
Headquartered in Kolkata, the Titagarh Group has four manufacturing plants located in West Bengal, two in Northern India, one each in France and Italy.
Titagarh is the largest wagon manufacturing company in India and in France with a combined capacity of producing more than 10,000 wagons per year.