Meet Saurabh Agrawal, IIT-IIM alumnus in-charge of Rs 14,00,000 crore Tata Sons’ finances, his salary is…

IIT Roorkee and IIM Kolkata alumnus Saurabh Agrawal has been perhaps the most important appointment by Tata boss N Chandrasekaran over the years. Agrawal is the group CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of the Rs 14 lakh crore Tata Sons, the holding company of the salt-to-software conglomerate.

Agrawal is an investment banking veteran with two decades of experience. He was earlier the head of corporate strategy at the Aditya Birla group. He is an ace dealmaker He was also the man who spearheaded the biggest M&A (merger and acquisition) deal in India, the $23 billion merger of Vodafone and Idea.

Agrawal was also a driver for the acquisition of Jaypee Group’s cement assets by UltraTech Cement. Among other features in his cap are restructuring of Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd and Grasim Ltd. He was advisor for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) IPO in 2014.

His other stints during his career include working for Standard Chartered Bank as regional head of corporate finance (South Asia) and heading investment banking at DSP Merrill Lynch.

Agrawal earned a chemical engineering degree from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee. He then learned management at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta. He joined Tata Sons as Group CFO in 2017.

In FY22,  Agrawal’s annual compensation climbed by 21 percent to Rs 26 crore from Rs 21.45 crore the year before.

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