ITC Chairman YC Deveshwar Dies At 72  

Yogesh Chander Deveshwar, non-executive chairman of consumer goods maker ITC Ltd., died on Saturday.

Deveshwar, 72, was the longest-serving chief executive officer of an Indian company and headed the tobacco-to-hospitality conglomerate for more than two decades. He was instrumental in expanding ITC’s business beyond tobacco, and warding off a takeover threat by ITC's largest shareholder British American Tobacco.

A mechanical engineer by training, he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi in 1968 and his first job was with ITC.

He was appointed on the board of ITC in 1984 and became the company’s CEO and chairman in 1996, a position he held till 2017. He received the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honour, in 2011.