Shantanu Naidu, youngest GM of TATA Trust and Ratan Tata’s millennial friend shares goodbye post for his 'lighthouse'

Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons, passed away on Wednesday evening. For the past few days, Mr Tata was admitted to the Breach Candy Hospital in south Mumbai. Mr. Tata was hospitalised on Monday (October 7, 2024) owing to age-related issues, and to control his blood pressure.

Shantanu Naidu, the youngest general manager at Tata Trust and Ratan Tata’s trusted assistant, mourned the loss of India’s renowned business tycoon by sharing a ‘goodbye’ post which read ‘Grief is the price to pay for love’.

Naidu shared a picture of himself with Ratan Tata and wrote in a LinkedIn post: "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."

Shantanu Naidu developed a remarkable bond with the late billionaire industrialist Ratan Tata. He is one of Ratan Tata's closest aides. Shantanu gained attention when a video of him celebrating Ratan Tata’s birthday went viral. Shantanu Naidu has since gained recognition in the industry. Ratan Tata has always regarded Shantanu as his son, even though he is single and has never married. Shantanu Naidu 29 years old, began working for Ratan Tata in May of 2022.

Shantanu Naidu hails from Pune. He secured his engineering degree from Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2014. After his graduation, Naidu went on to pursue a Master's in Business Administration from Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2016. Naidu got a job as an automotive design engineer at Tata Elxsi in Pune following his graduation. In an exclusive story by Your Story, Shantanu revealed that he would come across dog carcasses that had been run over by speeding vehicles and to resolve this problem, he got the idea to make collars for dogs that would make them visible at night even without streetlights.

Naidu wrote a letter to Ratan Tata with details of his business venture to get support for his idea. Ratan Tata unexpectedly asked him to a meeting to talk about the project. The meeting of two dog lovers led to their friendship which helped Naid to land a job as Ratan Tata’s assistant. In addition, the millionaire invested in Naidu's recently launched Goodfellows, a program designed to help elderly people, and he was hired as general manager. The startup is purportedly valued at approximately Rs 5 crore.