Simone Naval Tata (née ''Dunoyer'') is a Swiss-born Indian businesswoman belonging to the

Tata family The Tata family is an Indian business family, based in Mumbai, India. The parent company is Tata Sons, which is the main holding company of the Tata Group. About 65% of the stock in these companies is owned by various Tata family charitable trus ...

. Simone Tata was born in 1930 and brought up in

Geneva, Switzerland Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

and graduated from

Geneva University The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...

. She visited India as a tourist in 1953, where she met

Naval H. Tata Naval Hormusji Tata (30 August 1904 – 5 May 1989) was an adopted son of Sir Ratanji Tata and a noted alumni of the Tata Group. He is the father of Ratan Tata, Jimmy Tata and Noel Tata. The Naval Tata Hockey Academy in Jamshedpur (joint ...

. They were married in 1955 and Simone settled permanently in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. Simone and Naval are the parents of

Noel Tata Noel Naval Tata (born 1957) is an Indian businessman with Irish citizenship, who is the chairman of Trent and Tata Investment Corporation, the managing director of Tata International, and the vice chairman of Titan Company and Tata Steel. Early ...

. Simone is the stepmother of the Tata group chairman,

Ratan Tata Ratan Naval Tata, GBE (born 28 December 1937) is an Indian industrialist and former chairman of Tata Sons. He was also the chairman of the Tata Group from 1990 to 2012, serving also as interim chairman from October 2016 through February 2017. ...

, who is from Naval's previous marriage. Simone Tata joined the Lakme Board in 1962, when it was a minor subsidiary of Tata Oil Mills, as managing director in 1961, rising to become its chairperson in 1982 and served as Non-Executive Chairman of Trent Ltd. until 30 October 2006. She was appointed to the board of Tata Industries in 1989. Seeing growth in the retail sector, in 1996 Tata sold Lakmé to

Hindustan Lever Limited Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is a consumer goods company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a subsidiary of Unilever, a British company. Its products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents, personal care products, water purifi ...

(HLL), and created Trent with money from the sale. All shareholders of Lakmé were given equivalent shares in Trent. The ''Westside'' brand and stores belong to Trent.

References

Living people Businesspeople from Mumbai Swiss emigrants to India Simone 1930 births Businesswomen from Maharashtra 20th-century Indian businesswomen Businesspeople from Geneva Trent Limited {{India-business-bio-stub