Education
Government College University.
Government College University.
He directed Hindustan Lever during the important transitional phase of Indian management. He was the first Indian Chairman of Hindustan Lever Limited. (now known as Hindustan Unilever Limited).
A Chartered Accountant, trained in London, he was one of the pioneers of professional management in India.
He also served as the chairman of the State Trading Corporation and Punjab National Bank and is credited with earning distinction as a Chief Executive Officer who for his systems, efficiency and honesty in running PSU"son In 1974 Reserve Bank of India constituted a study group headed by Shri Prakash Tandon, the then Chairman of Punjab National Bank, with a view to study the entire gamut of Bank"s finance for working capital and suggest ways for optimum utilisation of Bank cartulary-register
This was the first elaborate attempt by the central bank to organise the Bank cartulary-register The report of this group is widely known as Tandon Committee report.
Most banks in India even today continue to look at the needs of the corporates in the light of methodology recommended by the Group.
Prakash Tandon was the son of a civil engineer and born in a canal colony in the Punjab. His autobiographical writings, published in the second half of the twentieth century, give vivid accounts of life in Punjab from the late nineteenth century. Following schooling in Gujarat and Lahore Government College, Tandon sailed for Britain in 1929, aged eighteen years old.
Tandon enrolled at Manchester University with the view to become a Chartered Accountant, of which there were very few qualified Indians at the time.
Tandon spent eight years in Britain. He got involved in the University debating team, and following his degree at Manchester stayed in London to pursue some economics research and his accountancy qualifications.
In 1937, Tandon returned to India. He settled in Bombay and he eventually got a job at Unilever.
Despite his accountancy qualification, Tandon was employed in the advertising department and earnt less than his British colleagues.
He eventually became director of Unilever in 1951. Tandon was an extremely influential business leader in independent India, and one of the pioneers of professional management in India.
He was a member of the first board of Hindustan Lever in 1956 and then the first Indian Chairman in 1961.