The Tata Group and the Globalization of Indian Corporates

CASI Seminar
Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan and Mr. David Good
Executive Director of Tata Sons (Gopalakrishnan) and Chief Representative of Tata Sons in North America (Good)
Huntsman Hall, Room 250 3730 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104

Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan is executive director of Tata Sons, chairman of Rallis India and vice-chairman of Tata Chemicals. He is a director of several Tata Group companies such as Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Internet Services. He also serves on the board of two non-Tata companies, ICI and Castrol India. A key member of the Tata Group Executive Office, Mr. Gopalakrishnan plays a vital role in providing direction and impetus to the Group's forays into potentially viable areas of the new economy. A graduate in physics from Calcutta University, Mr. Gopalakrishnan also has a degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

David Good, who heads Tata’s office in the United States, joined the US State Department in 1971 after graduating in political science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. After 34 years in the Department, serving in the State Department, the US Information Agency and in diplomatic postings in India and West Asia, he was made the US consul general in Mumbai, a position he held from 1999 to 2002. Good retired in 2004 as director of the Department's Washington DC office for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives affairs.

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.