Leo Puri, a financial sector veteran, and chairman of JP Morgan India, South and Southeast Asia, has been inducted on the board of Tata Sons, officials aware of the development said.

Puri, 58, has over 30 years' experience in consultancy and finance, having worked at McKinsey, Warburg Pincus and UTI Asset Management Company.

People who know him closely say Puri has demonstrated the ability to deal with complex situations in the financial services sector over a period of time and would be a major asset to the Tata Sons board. N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, is also professionally well acquainted with Puri since the time he led TCS as CEO, and has been key in getting him on board, insiders said.

It is not clear yet if he has joined the board as a Tata Trust nominee or as an independent director.

Tata Sons board has recently seen fresh inductions. Vijay Singh, vice chairman of Tata Trusts, is now officially a part of Tata Sons board, with his name being proposed and approved at the last board meeting of the holding company on February 11 that also reappointed Chandrasekaran as chairman for 5 years.

Tata Sons did not comment. Leo Puri was not reachable.

Tata Trusts has recently sought to strengthen its representation on the board in order to have a better balance between management and shareholder representations.

Puri is expected to bring in finance-related expertise to the board, an insider said. Group CFO Sourav Agarwal is also on the board.

Tata Sons is also keen to ensure more diversity on the board of the $103-billion conglomerate which faces many complex challenges.

Currently, Tata Sons board has more management representatives, including chairman N Chandrasekaran, CFO Sourav Agarwal, Bhaskar Bhat and Ralph Speth compared to Tata Trust nominees and independent directors.Currently Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh are the only Trusts nominees on board while Ajay Piramal and Harish Manwani are independent directors.

Tata Trusts and Tata Sons recently passed a resolution raising the age limit of trust nominees on the board of Tata Sons from 70 years to 75 years. That enabled Vijay Singh, vice chairman of Tata Trusts, to rejoin the board. He had stepped down from the board in 2018.

About 66% of the equity capital of Tata Sons is held by philanthropic trusts endowed by members of the Tata family. The biggest two of these trusts are Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust. While 18% stake in Tata Sons is owned by Shapoorji Pallonji family, the rest is owned by nine Tata group companies.