Chairman of ITC and one of India’s longest-serving top executives, Yogesh Chander Deveshwar died in Delhi on Saturday morning after a brief illness. He was 72 years old. Deveshwar is survived by his wife and two children.
An alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Harvard Business School, Deveshwar joined ITC in 1968. He became its chief executive and chairman on January 1, 1996. Between 1991 and 1994, he also served as the chairman and managing director of Air India. He stepped down as chief executive of ITC in 2017 but remained a non-executive chairman.
ITC Managing Director Sanjiv Puri in a statement said that Deveshwar had “passionately championed the cause for sustainable and inclusive growth as well as the transformative role businesses could play in creating larger societal value”.