Who Was Cyrus Mistry’s ‘Clementine Mirror’?

Late Cytus Mistry

New Delhi: Cyrus Mistry, former Tata Sons chairman, who died in a tragic car accident on Sunday, is survived by his wife Rohiqa Mistry and two sons Firoz and Zahan. Rohiqa is the daughter of one of Mumbai’s famous lawyers Iqbal Chagla. The unusually quiet Mistry once spoke in an interview on the Tata website of her role in life.

He called her a Clementine mirror who never shies away from disagreeing with him. He compared her to Winston Churchill’s wife Clementine who had once famously pointed out the errors in the judgment of the war-time hero and Prime Minister of England during its darkest hours.

The golf-loving Mistry too had admitted, during his tenure as Tata Sons chairman, that he has done a bad job of work-life balance. However, immediately after his exit, the first thing he did even before he took the legal recourse, was to go on a holiday.

Cyrus also has two sisters, Laila and Aloo. His sister, Aloo, is married to Noel Tata, the half-brother of Ratan Tata.

During his four-year tenure as the chairman of Tata Sons, Cyrus Mistry had earned a nickname – ‘the most low profile man with the most high profile job’.

In 2016, Cyrus Mistry was unceremoniously removed as the chairman without giving reasons and he was no more low profile. Mistry called his removal from chairmanship ‘unique in history’.

Other details:

• Mistry was the son of Pallonji Mistry, the single largest shareholder of Tata Sons. He owned a stake of over 18.5%.
• He was the sixth and the youngest chairman to head Tata Sons when he took over from Ratan Tata in 2012.
• He succeeded his father on the board of Tata Sons and was made the managing director of the family-run Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s construction and infrastructure business in 1994 at the age of 26.
• He was an Irish citizen by virtue of his mother being Irish. He was born in Mumbai on July 4, 1968.
• He was a graduate of civil engineering from the Imperial College, London, 1990 and had done MSc in Management from the London Business School in 1997.