Y C Deveshwar: The eternal risk-taker who steered ITC's bold transformation

One of India's longest serving corporate chiefs, he transformed ITC from a tobacco company to a retail and FMCG major

Sometime in 2012 — five years before he stepped down as executive chairman of ITC — Y C Deveshwar told Outlook that “sometimes, not taking a risk may be the biggest risk” for a corporation. He had walked that talk throughout his stint at ITC, a company he joined in 1968 after graduating from IIT-Delhi and stayed on till he breathed his last on Saturday, with a four-year gap in-between when he shifted to Air India.
 
There is no doubt that not taking those calculated risks would have been the biggest danger to ITC’s survival as well as growth.