[1] He served as an ambulance driver on the Western Front during the First World War, and was awarded the Military Medal for Bravery.
Ladden joined the Simpson and Co of Madras and rose to become its managing director in the early 1930s.
In 1938, along with Sir Alexander McDougall, Ladden founded the Amalgamations Group.
Ladden had to resign as managing director yielding way to S. Anantharamakrishnan when the group nationalized on India's independence in 1947.
Ladden, however, continued to head the Amalgamations' London-based subsidiary Wallace Cartwright and Co well into the sixties.