Tata Saga – Part 8:
The Anita George Question: peeping into the mind of a failed Indian. How can she ever do anything pro India. She is just a leftover of the Ajay Piramal era. It was stupid to have had her on the Board. Let me analyse this further:
Investment Governance has to meet Accountability. Those seeking authority without accountability are pure liability for the company hiring them.
Anita George’s career is impressive on paper: World Bank, IFC, Siemens, CDPQ—and now an independent director at Tata Sons. But seniority brings something else: accountability for the institutional decisions made under one’s watch. And that is where she fails repeatedly.
As CDPQ’s India head, George was closely associated with the pension fund’s investment in Azure Power. CDPQ ultimately invested about US$488 million in Azure through multiple transactions between 2016 and 2022. CDPQ CEO Charles Emond later identified Anita George as responsible for the investment at the India level. The investment was subsequently carried at roughly US$100 million or less. (Moneycontrol)
Then came the U.S. investigation into an alleged bribery scheme involving Indian solar contracts. The exact playbook followed by Chandrasekhar to build value.
The 2024 U.S. indictment named former Azure executives and former CDPQ executives. It did not name Anita George, but it is exceedingly clear that the entire construct of the business was to give bribes and get govt contracts. I do not know of any other way to get govt contracts- be they defence or subsidies. Adani cannot do a consumer business because it is just too expensive to bribe a retail consumer. And so much cheaper to bribe a govt one. I am just using the word bribe as an alibi for cost. I don’t mean anything illegal is involved anywhere. So when Uber pays a cab more that what he gets from the customer – he is bribing the customer to use him.
That distinction matters. But it also raises a legitimate governance question:
How should boards evaluate the track record of directors who were senior decision-makers around investments that subsequently suffered major value erosion and became associated with serious regulatory and governance controversies?
This is not about guilt by association. It is about something more fundamental:
Who takes responsibility when institutional capital goes wrong?
And when that person later sits on the board of one of India’s most consequential corporate institutions, shareholders are entitled to examine the record carefully.
Independent directors are not ceremonial positions. They are positions of judgment, oversight and accountability.
That standard should apply to everyone.
From Nira Radia to Chandrasekhar to Pramit Jhaveri to Anita – Tatas repeatedly thought they had found a right man to do a wrong thing.
There is no such thing.
There is NO right way to do a WRONG thing.
hashtag#CorporateGovernance hashtag#TataSons hashtag#CDPQ hashtag#AzurePower hashtag#IndependentDirectors hashtag#Accountability hashtag#Investing
