Categories: Obituaries

‘Steel Man of India’ Jamshed Irani passes away at 86

Jamshed J Irani, also known as the “Steel Man of India”, passed away aged 86 at Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur. He was born on June 2, 1936, in Nagpur to Jiji Irani and Khorshed Irani, Irani completed his BSc from Science College, Nagpur in 1956 and M.Sc in Geology from Nagpur University in 1958. Irani retired from the Board of Directors at Tata Steel in June 2011.

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The career of Jamshed J Irani?

Jamshed J Irani completed his BSc from Science College, Nagpur in 1956 and his MSc in Geology from Nagpur University in 1958.
Irani then went to the University of Sheffield in the UK as a JN Tata scholar, where he secured a Master’s in Metallurgy in 1960, and a PhD in Metallurgy in 1963.
He started his professional career with the British Iron and Steel Research Association in Sheffield in 1963. But he always wished to contribute to India’s industrial progress.
Irani returned to India to join Tata Steel or Tata Iron and Steel Company, as it was then known, in 1968 and joined the firm as assistant to the director in charge of research and development.
In 1978, Irani went on to become the general superintendent of the company. In 1979, he was promoted to the rank of general manager, and eventually, in 1985, he became the president of Tata Steel.
He became joint managing director of Tata Steel in 1988, and managing director in 1992, before retiring in 2011.
He joined the Board of Tata Steel in 1981 and was also a non-executive director from 2001 for a decade. Besides Tata Steel and Tata Sons, Irani also served as a director of several Tata Group companies, including Tata Motors and Tata Teleservices.
He was the chairman of the board of governors at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. He, along with his sister Diana Hormusjee, instituted “Jiji Irani Challenge Cup”, a cricket tournament organised by the Zoroastrian Club of Secunderabad in memory of their father.
After being appointed an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1996, he was conferred an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997. Later in 2007, he received the Padma Bhushan government of India. After 43 years of service, he retired from Tata Steel in 2011.