Last week , Nitin Nohria, the Indian-born dean of Harvard Business School (HBS), was appointed as a non-executive director on the board of Tata Sons.

However, Tata Sons’ association with HBS goes back a long way.

In what was dubbed as the largest gift HBS ever received from an international donor in the school’s 102-year history, philanthropic entities of the Tata Group donated $50 million to the institution in October 2010.

What made the gift even more extraordinary was that it came not from an MBA alumnus, or from a US-based philanthropist, as is usual with grants.

Instead, it came from Ratan Tata, former chairman of Tata Sons, who had attended HBS’ Advanced Management Programme in 1975. The programme is one of the three leadership programmes offered by HBS. Ratan received the school's highest honour, the Alumni Achievement Award, in 1995. Former HBS dean Jay Light had approached Ratan Tata about making the gift in 2008. It was finally agreed upon over a light lunch of tuna sandwiches, said people familiar with the development. The group’s Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Tata Education and Development Trust donated the amount in 2010 to fund a new academic and residential building on the HBS campus in Boston.

The building is named Tata Hall. At the groundbreaking ceremony, Tata said his 13 weeks in the management programme were “an inflection point” in his life, especially in his early years in business. Though he left the campus “confused,” the lessons became clearer later, “at many hard moments in my subsequent career,” he said.

The seven-story, 161,000 sq ft building is slated to open late 2013. It will contain two additional classrooms, three common gathering spaces and housing for 179 people.

At the time of the donation in 2010, HBS had a new dean in Nitin Nohria, who had expressed deep appreciation for the Tata Group's generosity. He termed it a “historic gift from a renowned organisation revered for its significant economic, civic and philanthropic impact.”

Ratan Tata said the gift would support HBS’ educational mission to mould the next generation of global business leaders.

Interestingly, in March 2012, Mumbai-based Taj Lands End also opened its doors to HBS’ first classroom in India, at its sprawling property in suburban Bandra. Ratan Tata inaugurated the amphitheatre-styled classroom in the presence of Nohria. The classrooms at Taj Lands End, which can seat 82 students, are very similar to the MBA classrooms in Boston.

> amritanair.ghaswalla@thehindu.co.in

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