A legacy to keep
Working for the Tata group has been a family tradition for the Gangulys. Amrita Ganguly, head, content management & communication strategy, corporate communication, India and SEA, Tata Steel, is the fourth generation of the family to join the group Amrita has deep roots of steel, roots that go as far back as her great-grandfather, the late Abani Kumar Mukherjee, and deeper still into the ethos of Jamshedpur, the township-city that nurtured the Tata group. A civil engineer from Bengal Engineering College, Mr Mukherjee retired as an SDO (redesignated general foreman) in the engineering division in TISCO, Jamshedpur. He had played an important role in the construction of the approach road to Dimna Lake, using extensive blasting in the 1940s. Years later, his grandson, Debasish Gangopadhyay, a mechanical engineer from Jadavpur University, joined Tata Steel as a graduate trainee. Debasish retired as chief, Power Systems at Tata Steel in October 2014 after 5 years of extension. Over the course of more than 45 years, he gained tremendous experience, which proved valuable to the company at several locations like Kalinganagar and Thailand. In Jamshedpur, his contributions included involvement in conceptualising, building and running the blast furnace, blowers and the captive power houses. To the manner born Born and brought up in Jamshedpur, Amrita was fully aware and proud of the culture of this gracious city, and the company and group that calls it home. At age 17, she moved to Delhi and later to Pune to pursue her higher studies. Her career in the media took her to Mumbai where she worked with reputed names such as Times Group, BBC Worldwide, Disney etc. Joining a corporate was far from her mind. In fact, she had resisted a career as an engineer in her formative years. It was only when Tata Steel offered her a role that was, in her own words, “both exciting and challenging,” that she found her steps turning homeward. She says, “In 2015, I joined as head – Content Management, and in six months, I was given the added portfolio of Strategic Communication.” The role required extensive un-learning and re-learning, but what kept her going was “a strong alignment to the Tata ethos and the belief that I work for an organisation that has its heart in the right place.” Her decision to leave the world of media behind and accept a role in Tata Steel received validation from an unexpected quarter: her boss at her then workplace, who had also been her first boss, when she had been an intern. She says, “He told me, ‘I could keep you back for short-term gain, but someone like you, with your ethics and integrity, will do very well in a Tata company.’” The words reminded Amrita of the values that her father had stood for. She adds, “As a child, I remember the pride in my father's voice when he said that he would rather live within his means than give in to temptation, and that he had more comforts for his family than he could have wished for in terms of the convenience that Jamshedpur afforded, with great schooling, safe roads, clubs, parks and a community.” The fact that she hailed from Jamshedpur added to Amrita’s personal equity. She says, “When I met the tenured colleagues, the discussion was not just about my work, but also about my growing up years in Jamshedpur.” An equity of trust The news that she had taken up Tata Steel’s offer delighted her father. Debasish, whose own stint in Tata Steel had completely fulfilled him and who had created tremendous positive equity of his own, yearned to have his daughter experience the same in her career. It is an emotion that Amrita can better understand, now that she is on the inside. She says, “Tata Steel has been an extremely caring organisation, and that is the culture of the entire group. There is palpable emphasis placed on long-term inter-personal relationships.” Once she joined the company, setting up base in Kolkata, Amrita had a unique feeling of having arrived home. That feeling was accentuated when she attended the Founder’s Day programme on March 3 in Jamshedpur, the city of her childhood memories. She says, “I attended a Founder’s Day programme after 29 years. As I stood there, the sensation of gooseflesh that came upon me was a reminder of the fact that the ground that I was standing on was a huge part of my identity. No other job has given me that feeling.” Today, faced with the challenge of trying to build discourse around the fact that Tata Steel is an over-100-year-old brand that is just as relevant today, Amrita sees it as a personal commitment. She feels even more compelled to add value to the company. She says, “The ownership feels big because I don't see my responsibility limited to delivering a few publications or campaigns and going home. I am more vested in what I contribute here than I have been in the past.” It is this sense of personal investment that inspires Amrita to continue doing her best for a company and a group that she sees as her own. She says, “What my great grandfather, my father and I have experienced in terms of universal values is consistent. And that means a lot to me.”
