Jamsetji Tata was born to Nusserwanji and Jeevanbai Tata on 3 March 1839 in Navsari, a city in the south Gujarat. Jamsetji Tata and his family were a part of the minority group of Zoroastrians, or Parsees, who came to India from fleeing the persecution of Zoroastrians in Iran. He was born in a respectable, but poor family of priests. His father, Nusserwanji, was the first businessman in a family of Parsi Zoroastrian priests. His mother tongue is Gujarati. He broke the tradition to become the first member of the family to start a business. He started an export trading firm in Mumbai. Unlike other Zoroastrians, Jamsetji Tata had a formal Western education because his parents saw that he was gifted with special mental arithmetic from a young age. However, in order for him to have a more modern education, he was later sent to Bombay.

After graduating from the Elphinstone College in Bombay in 1858, he joined his father’s export-trading firm, and mainly helped establish its strong branches in Japan, China, Europe, and the United States. It was a turbulent time to start a business as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 had just been suppressed by the British government. Tata regularly travelled to China in order to become educated with the trade business in opium, that was bustling at the time within a small colony of Parsees and was tightly closed off to outsiders. Jamsetji Tata’s father wanted to be a part of this business, so he sent Jamsetji Tata to China in order to learn about the business there and the details about the opium trade. However, when Tata travelled around China, he began to realize that trade in the cotton industry was booming, and there was a chance of making a great profit. This influenced his business career, where he invested the most in cotton mills throughout his lifetime.

Tata worked in his father’s company until he was 29. He founded a trading company in 1868 with ₹21,000 capital (worth US$52 million in 2015 prices). He bought a bankrupt oil mill at Chinchpokli in 1869 and converted it to a cotton mill, which he renamed as Alexandra Mill. He sold the mill 2 years later for a profit. Later, in 1874, Jamsetji Tata floated the Central India Spinning, Weaving, and Manufacturing Company in Nagpur because it seemed like a suitable place for him to establish another business venture. Due to this unconventional location, the people of Bombay scorned Tata for not making the smart move by taking the cotton business up in Bombay, known as the “Cottonopolis” of India. They did not understand why he went to the undeveloped city of Nagpur to start a new business. However, Tata’s decision of choosing Nagpur led to his success. Unlike Bombay, land in Nagpur was cheap and was readily available for resources. There was abundant farm produce, distribution was easy, and the cheap land later led to the converging of railways at Nagpur, which further developed the city. Shortly after, in 1877, Tata established a new cotton mill, “Empress Mill” when Queen Victoria was proclaimed as the Empress of India at 1 January 1877.

In addition, in 1885, Tata floated another company in Pondicherry for the sole purpose of distributing Indian textiles to the nearby French Colonies and not having to pay duties; however, this was a failed attempt due to insufficient demand in the fabrics.

While on a business trip to Germany in 1900, Tata became seriously ill. He died in Bad Nauheim on 19 May 1904, and was buried in the Parsi burial ground in Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, England.

He had four goals in life: setting up an iron and steel company, a world-class learning institution, a unique hotel and a hydro-electric plant. Only the hotel became a reality during his lifetime, with the inauguration of the Taj Mahal Hotel at Colaba waterfront in Mumbai on 3 December 1903 at the cost of ₹11 million (worth ₹11 billion in 2015 prices). At that time it was the only hotel in India to have electricity.