Mehli Mistry resigns from Ratan Tata’s family office | Today’s news
A confidante of the late Ratan Tata, Mehli Mistry, has resigned from the board of RNT Associates Pvt Ltd., a little over three years after she joined the board of the family office, which includes two Tatas sisters as members.
Mehli Mistry’s resignation from RNT Associates follows his expulsion from Tata Trusts, the philanthropic entities owned by Tata Sons, the group’s holding company, in November 2025 and marks his continued exit from the group and its related entities.
“As I am busy with my other commitments, I hereby tender my resignation as director of RNT Associates Pvt. Ltd, with effect from July 1, 2026,” Mistry wrote to the RNT Associates board in a letter dated June 30.
The four remaining board members of RNT Associates are sisters Ratan Tata, Shireen Jejeebhoy and Deanna Jejeebhoy, Jamsheed Poncha, Tata Sons executive and Tata Trusts CEO Siddharth Sharma.
Founded in March 2009, RNT Associates was the investment vehicle that Ratan Tata used to invest in startups. The investment vehicle has small investments in nearly two dozen startups, including mobile payments group Paytm, Ola and online gold jeweler BlueStone.
RNT Associates makes money through dividends and by providing consulting services. In the year ending March 2023, the latest financial data available Mint upon review, dividend income accounted for roughly half ₹36 million in sales at RNT Associates.
Ratan Tata and another of his trusted lieutenants, the late RK Krishna Kumar, were the two major shareholders of RNT Associates. In 2022, before Ratan Tata’s demise in October 2024, the industrialist established Ratan Tata Endowment Foundation (RTEF) and Ratan Tata Endowment Trust (RTET) as two shareholders of RNT Associates.
RTEF counts Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, former Tata Group managing director Raghavan Shastri and another ex-group employee Burzis Taraporevala as board members. RTET counts Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata, Shireen and Deanna, former Citibank India employee Pramit Jhaveri and Shastri and Poncha of RNT Associates as trustees.
An email sent to Tata Trusts CEO Sharma seeking comment went unanswered.
Mistry, who was appointed to the board of RNT Associates in March 2023, ended his involvement with the Tata Group after disagreements with the Tata Trustees led to his ouster from two major Tata Trusts. Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust own 27.98% and 23.56% respectively in Tata Sons, while other smaller trusts own 14.4%, giving these philanthropic entities a majority stake of 65.9% in the diversified Tata Group holding company. The remaining stakes are held by the Shapoorji Pallonji Group (18.38%), nine Tata group companies (12.86%) and seven individuals (2.87%).
After his expulsion, Mistry challenged the decision of the other trustees, including chairman Noel Tata and two vice-chairmen, Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh, to exclude him from philanthropic entities, before the Charity Commissioner of Maharashtra. Mistry says he is not seeking reinstatement of the Tata Trusts and is only submitting these affidavits to expose what he believes were wrongdoings at the philanthropic entities which, when it came to light, led to his expulsion.
