Agrawal, who oversaw Idea-Vodafone merger among other multi-million deals, was at Aditya Birla's as strategy head.
"He (Agrawal) brings deep capital markets knowledge and valuable cross-industry experience to this critical leadership role in the Tata group," Chandrasekaran said in a statement.
"His expertise will help us in driving rigour and synergy in capital allocation decisions, investment management as well as consolidation and optimisation of the group's business portfolio. We look forward to his contribution in driving financial performance of the group."
In the past, Agrawal was the managing director, regional head of corporate finance, South Asia, Standard Chartered Bank.
He was also part of the team that blew the whistle on Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju.