New Delhi, Oct. 18 -- Before Prakash Tandon, corporate leadership in India passed from father to son, much like a royal succession, a mark of the hereditary privilege of founding families and their descendants.

Tandon helped birth an alternative universe. Across three decades and three institutions-Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), Punjab National Bank (PNB), and State Trading Corporation of India Ltd-he pioneered the then-radical notion that professional competence, not family connection, could open paths to the top.

The lineage he established at HUL turned it into India's "CEO factory", eventually producing executives who commanded the parent multinational itself. The methodologies he introduced at PNB transformed Indian banking from a re...