Mumbai: Britain's leading industrialist Sir George Buckley has emerged as most probable name for the Tata Sons chairman, sky.com reported on Wednesday.
The chairman of FTSE-100 Smiths Group has been approached as a replacement of Cyrus Mistry who was ousted as Tata Sons chairman unceremoniously in October.
The news portal reported that, according to insiders, talks with Buckley are at an early stage and are also continuing with other candidates including Harish Manwani, former COO at Unilever.
The report makes Sir George who is "one of Britain's most seasoned and accomplished businessmen" first non-Indian to be linked to the top job.
Sky.com quotes one source as saying that his vast experience across steel, power and chemicals sectors put him on Tata Group's radar.
He is also on the boards of Hitachi, Stanley Black & Decker and PepsiCo, and his previous employers included Brunswick Corporation and Emerson Electric Company, the portal said.
Tata-Mistry feud
The personal differences between Cyrus Mistry and Ratan Tata came out in the open when the former was removed as chairman at an hurriedly called board meeting of Tata Sons on October 25.
Since then, both Tata and Mistry have unleashed attacks and counter-attacks against each other openly.
While Ratan Tata has claimed Mistry did not adhere to the standards and values set by the tea-to-chemicals conglomerate. Whereas, Cyrus Mistry in a series of counter-claims has said that Ratan Tata's "egistic" nature hurt prospects of the $103 billion empire.
