New Delhi, Aug. 29 -- Best of the Week is a weekly newsletter by Siddharth Sharma/Shravani Sinha. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your inbox.

When Natarajan Chandrasekaran announced he'd step down as Tata Sons chairman come 20 February 2027, the headlines understandably fixated on the exit itself, the "why" of it all. But peel back that layer, and you start asking who's walking into this job next, and what exactly are they inheriting?

A lot more than a corner office and a legacy brand. Whoever takes the reins will be handed nearly $10 billion in bank debt, a decade-long shareholder standoff worth potentially billions more, and a set of new-age bets that are still, quite literally, losing money.

Let's start with ...