Simone Naval Tata (née Dunoyer) was born in March 1930 in Geneva, Switzerland. She first came to India as a tourist in the 1950s, where she met Naval Tata, industrialist and philanthropist from the storied Tata family. The two got married in 1955, and she settled permanently in Mumbai.
Through this marriage, Simone became stepmother to Ratan Tata and Jimmy Tata from Naval’s first marriage, and later mother to Noel Tata, currently the chairman of Tata Trusts and chairman of three Tata Group companies. Simone Tata was just seven years older to her stepson Ratan Tata.
Simone Tata joined the board of Lakmé in the early 1960s, at a time when the brand was still a small operation under Tata Oil Mills. Over the following decades, her strategic and brand-building leadership helped turn Lakmé into a mass-market yet aspirational Indian beauty label, competing with global cosmetics giants and becoming a household name.
In the mid-1990s, when Lakmé was sold to Hindustan Lever (now Hindustan Unilever), she led the creation of Trent Limited using the proceeds of that sale. Trent launched the Westside chain, which became one of India’s most influential department store formats and a flagship of the Tata Group’s retail presence.
