‘Goodbye, my dear lighthouse’: Shantanu Naidu bids adieu to Ratan Tata | India News
Shantanu Naidu, the millennial assistant but largely a ‘trusted friend’ to Ratan Tata bid adieu to his 86-year old mentor in a heartfelt post on LinkedIn. The business tycoon and philanthropist passed away Wednesday night at a Mumbai hospital. He was admitted due to age-related health issues this week.
“The hole that this friendship has now left with me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to fill. Grief is the price to pay for love. Goodbye, my dear lighthouse, ” wrote the 30-year old entrepreneur along with an old and hazy picture of him with Ratan Tata taken inside an airplane. In January 2021, Naidu published his book with HarperCollins India, titled I Came Upon a Lighthouse: A Short Memoir of Life with Ratan Tata.
“I told him that when I write a book, I would write about another side of him and not just historic events or business milestones. I would write about us and our adventures together, and how I saw him, colours and shades of him unknown to the world. Life beyond the great steel wall of industry doyen, ” says Shantanu in the book’s description.
Naidu is the founder of Motopaws, an animal welfare organisation, and Goodfellows India, a startup that provides youth companionship to senior citizens in India. His animal welfare startup aims to provide street dogs with glow-in-the-dark collars to reduce accidents on Indian roads. Both of his projects were funded by Ratan Tata.
“You do not know what it’s like to be lonely, until you have spent time alone, wishing for companionship,” said the late industrialist at the opening of the Goodfellows venture by Naidu. “I hope the investment helps the young team at Goodfellows grow,” added Tata.
Naidu is a fifth-generation Tata employee who is also on the board of directors at the Tata Small Animal Hospital in Mumbai. A profound love for animals and a penchant for societal welfare fostered the friendship between Naidu and Tata.
The young General Manager at Tata started working as an Engineering intern at the company in 2009, after which he graduated with an MBA degree from Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2018.
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