Tarun Das, chief mentor, Confederation of Indian Industry, retired from the CII on Tuesday.
Das was the chief mentor of CII for the last five years. Prior to being the chief mentor, Das was the Director General of CII from 1974 to 2004.
His tenure as the director general saw the rise of CII from a small engineering association to the apex industry organisation in India.
"Under Tarun's leadership, CII has been instrumental in managing and initiating changes that shaped the socio-economic environment of the country over several decades," Venu Srinivasan, president, CII, said.
Respected by the industry and the government, Das who turned 70 earlier this year, would spend most of his time now on international relationship building and matters related to domestic development.
Commenting on his retirement, Das said: "My involvement on day-to-day matters of CII has not been there since the last five years. The organisation has the requisite internal strength to move ahead also on strategic issues and given the unique profile it has from the strong industry membership, I have no doubt that CII would continue to be the single most important point of reference for the industry."
"My focus as chief mentor was to facilitate an effective change process. I was available to the presidents and to Chandrajit Banerjee who has been the DG, CII since May 2008 to ensure continuity and a smooth transition. I believe we have been able to see through this process of transition smoothly and effectively and have therefore decided to now step down as the chief mentor."
