ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar passed away Saturday morning. He was 72. Deveshwar served for more than two decades as the executive chairman and CEO at ITC.
Deveshwar passed away after suffering from a brief illness. Deveshwar had joined ITC in 1968 and scaled heights to become its executive chairman in 1996. He became the non-executive chairman of the company in 2017. He also served as the chairman and managing director of the national carrier Air India from 1991 till 1994.
Deveshwar was the recipient of the Padma Bhushan — India’s highest civilian award — in 2011 and was instrumental in the company transformation from a tobacco company.
Deveshwar was an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Harvard Business School. He was also ranked as the world’s 7th Best Performing CEO by the Harvard Business Review in January-February 2013 edition.
ITC became among India’s top FMCG marketer, the largest and greenest paperboards and packaging business, the second largest hotel chain in India during his tenure at the company, ITC said.
Deveshwar had previously served the Reserve Bank of India as its Director on the Central Board. Apart from that, he was also the member at National Foundation for Corporate Governance, member of the board of trade at Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and at National Food Processing Development Council.
He was also the member of the Governing Body of the National Council of Applied Economic Research and the former Chairman of the Society and Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Deveshwar was also the recipient of the Global Leadership Award by the US-India Business Council of the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Person of the Year Award 2006 by the UK Trade & Investment. He was given the CII President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in April 2018.
Sanjiv Puri is the current CEO and MD of ITC.
