Innholdsfortegnelse for 26-Dec-21 i Business Today

INDUSTRIALIST SAJJAN Jindal has made his big move on the renewable energy front, by housing JSW Energy’s renewable businesses—both existing and upcoming—in a new entity called JSW Energy Neo. Currently, JSW Energy has an installed capacity of 4,559 MW, of which thermal is 3,158 MW and the rest, hydro and solar. The plan is to take capacity to 20 GW by 2030, with 85 per cent in renewables. According to Jigar Shah, CEO, Kim Eng Securities India, JSW Energy’s reorganisation is in line with global utilities bracing for net zero emissions by 2050 or earlier. “By then, coal assets would be stranded and will not get financing,” he says. The company, adds Shah, also plans to make green hydrogen, an alternative which is expected to form 10 per cent of the…

THE YEAR 2021 has been witness to Soma Mondal taking the reins at the ₹70,000-crore steel PSU SAIL as its first woman chairman, Falguni Nayar ringing the NSE bell as she steered her decade-old start-up to a ₹5,000-crore-plus IPO, and Ola Electric announcing a 10,000-strong all-women workforce for its two-wheeler factory near Chennai. All good tidings. That these are significant moments even in 2021, however, says a lot about the state of affairs for working women in India. Asia’s third-largest economy has one of the lowest rates of female labour participation in the world at 21 per cent. Smaller and less developed neighbours Bangladesh (30.5 per cent) and Sri Lanka (33.7 per cent) fare much better. Worse, India’s performance has declined over the past decade. A widened gender gap of…

“EVEN AFTER A decade of running a fast-growing and profitable company, I had to experience someone calling me ‘emotional’ when I disagreed with their unsolicited business advice. Once, my COO (chief operating officer) and I went to meet someone who refused to acknowledge my presence and only spoke with my COO, assuming I was there to only take notes. I was also ‘advised’ against having a woman CFO because I was already a woman CEO, something that simply doesn’t happen in companies where the entire management and board are men.” There may be a growing refrain calling for gender equality in the workplace, but the experiences of Hardika Shah show this may merely be lip service or an exercise in ticking the box. The Founder and CEO of Kinara Capital,…

FOR SOMEONE WHO pursued badminton very seriously—even making it to the national level—Deepika Padukone’s decision to look at modelling as a career option was made when she was only 16. A successful stint here inevitably led her to the film industry, a path many models have taken in the past. Incidentally, badminton (the love for the game is natural given she is the daughter of Prakash Padukone, one of India’s finest badminton players ever) was what she practised regularly as a child, but the fascination for the limelight was what changed the trajectory. And she has never looked back. From the time her debut film, Om Shanti Om, was released in 2007, she set the cash registers ringing. That success led to a successful career in the Hindi film industry apart…

IN 2007, WHEN Hina Nagarajan joined at the helm of Mary Kay India, the Dallas-headquartered direct selling cosmetics firm had just entered the country. Taking the challenge head on, Nagarajan set up Mary Kay India “brick by brick”. Since then, Mary Kay has exited India, and Nagarajan has moved up in her career. But what remains is the “sense of purpose and fulfilment” the role had implanted in her. Years later, at Diageo India, Nagarajan is now in charge of its massive India operations involving 3,261 direct employees, thousands of business partners, growing its ₹27,176-crore top line and firmly establishing its brands in the country’s consumer goods market. She also needs to implement a transformation of the India business that was housed under a fragmented United Spirits (USL) umbrella. To…

TECHNOLOGY, WHEN USED right, can make a real difference on the ground. When the country was floundering with oxygen shortage in the horrific second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, SAP Labs India connected the Government of India with medical oxygen suppliers using its Oxygen Digital Tracking System (ODTS). “Since more than 80 per cent of medical oxygen suppliers in India run SAP, a real-time integration of all major oxygen suppliers with ODTS was the fastest solution (created in 36 hours) to effectively track oxygen in the country and create a reliable delivery forecast for the hospitals,” recalls Sindhu Gangadharan, Managing Director of SAP Labs India. Under Gangadharan, the first woman to head SAP Labs’ largest R&D centre outside Germany, the company is working with NASSCOM and the Indian government to accelerate…

THE PANDEMIC HAS posed new challenges for most but has also brought new opportunities for some. For Suparna Mitra, it brought both. While the country was grappling with the first round of stringent lockdowns in early 2020, the responsibility of managing the ₹4,000-crore Titan Company’s watches and wearables division landed on her shoulders. It was both an opportunity and a challenge. Mitra, who is a sales and marketing veteran with close to 30 years of experience, faced the challenge head on, a situation she prefers. “You get stressed not when events are happening, but the outcome is outside your control,” she says. The past 20 months have been difficult for her and the business. Sales have only begun to recover in the second half of 2021. But the learnings that…

IT TOOK EIGHT years of dabbling in HR solutions, lingerie and subscription-based beauty e-commerce, racking her brains trying to nail the right product-market fit, before Vineeta Singh and her Co-founder husband Kaushik Mukherjee decided to make and sell liquid matte lipsticks. Thus was born SUGAR Cosmetics—a digital beauty brand for the millennial woman. That was 2015, when the D2C (direct to consumer) wave had just begun, and SUGAR rode the wave to rake in ₹100 crore revenues in FY20. “Everybody said, ‘You’re competing in a sector with all the big daddies from Unilever to P&G to L’Oreal. It is silly to operate in a space that is so commoditised’. But we had started seeing what other big brands had not, which is how a product can become a hero instead of…

INDIA’S LEADING BANKER. First woman chief of India’s biggest bank, SBI. Creates a legacy over four years. Retires. Turns independent director on various companies’ boards. Then, you’d expect her to relax and remain in an advisory role. But that’s not Arundhati Bhattacharya’s style. Three years after retiring from SBI, she returned to active duty in April 2020 at, not a bank, but an American software company, as its Chairperson and CEO. It takes gumption to do the unconventional, and Bhattacharya, who now leads San-Francisco-based Salesforce’s presence in India, has given a new meaning to the phrase “shattering the glass ceiling”. Besides doubling headcount within a year, she has focussed on creating synergies between different departments and brought customer service at the centre. With a non-IT background, the perception challenge in…

“WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN passionate about sustainability even years back when it wasn’t fashionable. We’ve been focussed on light-weighting, better materials, etc.,” says Harshbeena Zaveri, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of NRB Bearings, a market leader in needle and cylindrical roller bearings used in auto parts—engines, gearboxes, and steering. In fact, NRB is already in hybrid vehicles in Europe and the US, and applications for e-mobility vehicles have been the growth driver for its exports (10.6 per cent growth in exports in FY21). Closer home, the company was not only able to rebound from the aftershocks of the pandemic but also ended the first half of fiscal year 2022 with revenue growth of 76 per cent. The faster adoption and development of newer products for BS-VI proved to be an important…

STRETCH YOURSELF. BEAT your own benchmarks. This is the tenet Vishakha R.M., MD and CEO of IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company, lives by. Consider this: From `130 crore annually in 2015, IndiaFirst Life’s retail business has grown to `100 crore-plus a month. A matter of pride for any CEO. Under her leadership, IndiaFirst Life—the youngest entrant in the market, which ranks 10th amongst 23 insurance companies by new business retail premium (YTD)—figures in the top eight companies with highest persistency, and among the top five in claim settlement. One of the unmissable traits of her personality is her calm demeanour, which came in handy during the pandemic. “The journey in the past 18 months was one of having to manage emotions. Be emphatic, clear-headed and focussed on what is important for the…

DAISY CHITTILAPILLY LED Cisco’s India and SAARC operations to among the top performers globally in her first quarter as India lead—Q1 of FY22—as she accelerated a transition towards software and subscription-based offerings. That’s sharp, but there’s more to her. As the pandemic scorched India last year, she partnered with the government to set up a first-of-its-kind Covid-19 command centre. Her belief that “technology can be a great equaliser” has led Cisco’s efforts to transform critical sectors digitally. “What limits you is only between your ears,” she says. We agree. MY NEXT FRONTIER Bring benefits of digitisation to people, communities that need them most…

NIVRUTI RAI, COUNTRY Head, Intel India, and VP, Intel Foundry Services, has grown the firm’s headcount and expanded its engineering and innovation programs. She spearheaded key initiatives in skilling, innovation, research and entrepreneurship, including AI for All and AI for Youth initiatives. Also, at Intel Foundry Services, Rai leveraged India’s engineering strengths in the execution of IDM 2.0 (integrated vice manufacturing) strategy for the US and Europe. “Our purpose is to create world-changing technology de-that improves the life of every person on the planet,” says Rai. That includes you. MY NEXT FRONTIER Harness the power of technology to solve societal challenges and enrich lives…

THIS YEAR, INDIA’S top IT services firms are set to clock double-digit revenue growth, thanks to a rise in IT services spending globally because of Covid-19. The trend also drove HCL Technologies, one of the country’s top five IT services firms, to generate revenue of `20,655 crore in the July-September quarter, up 11.1 per cent Y-o-Y. It also signed 14 large deals that quarter. But HCL Tech’s products and platforms revenue declined 5.5 per cent, the third straight quarter of sequential decline. Roshni Nadar Malhotra, who is Chairperson, HCL Technologies, and Trustee, Shiv Nadar Foundation, will look to set that right. HCL’S NEXT FRONTIER To ride the digital transformation wave and correct lagging units…

The years correspond to when these leaders won their seventh BT MPW Award and then moved to the Hall of Fame list…

ENJOYED WATCHING BRIDGERTON and The Queen’s Gambit? Well, you have Bela Bajaria to thank for it. The Head of Global TV at Netflix manages three kids at home, and also takes care of the entertainment needs of some 214 million subscribers worldwide. “My goal is to support creators around the world who have stories they are passionate to tell, with a focus on local, authentic stories. And, in turn, please members around the world with the best shows,” she says. Previously a President at Universal Television, Bajaria made history as the first woman of colour to oversee a studio. She also held key posts at the CBS (Columbia Broad-casting System) network. Bajaria’s superpower? Her point of view, she says: “Growing up, I tried to hide the ways I was different. It…

ZERODHA FOUNDER and CEO Nithin Kamath regularly takes a dig at some practices of his rival broking firms. A few days ago, he posted a series of tweets to say that Zerodha does a valuation exercise every year but only for ESOP buyback, not for external fund raising. It came two days after reports stated that rival Upstox was set to become a unicorn after the latest funding round. More recently, he said Zerodha does not offer the feature of pre-IPO orders since those are “not in spirit” of the regulations and destroys the sanctity of the book-building process. Incidentally, Paytm Money had launched a feature that allowed its clients to bid in an IPO before the issue opened. Further, at a time when high-valued start-ups are lining up their…

K.V. KAMATH is back where he began, in a development financial institution—he had started his career at ICICI Ltd. Kamath, 73, has taken over as Chairman of National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID), and the government hopes that, with his global experience, he’ll make a difference in its efforts to support the $1.5-trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline for projects to be completed in 2020-25. That’s the big plan, but there’s no institution of size to fund the projects. Ergo, NaBFID and Kamath. “We plan to start lending operations with about 190-200 big infrastructure projects,” he’d said after taking over. Sounds developmental.…

After successfully steering India’s startup movement, Amitabh Kant, 65, in his fourth stint as the NITI Aayog CEO, is driving India’s ‘Go Green’ mission by encouraging tech-led disruption in the energy and mobility sectors. Leading talks with US-based Tesla, the 1980-batch retired IAS officer, along with other government departments, is framing a conducive policy to facilitate the world’s largest electric vehicle maker’s entry into India. In an interaction with Business Today’s Dilasha Seth, Kant says the recent IPO success of Zomato and Nykaa will boost the confidence of other start-ups in encouraging venture capitalists and private equity investors to back more domestic start-ups. Edited excerpts: Q: NITI Aayog has propelled several transformative policy reforms. What have been the most exciting initiatives for you? A: Whether it has been digitalisation, start-ups, innovation, improving…

If you have more women in senior positions, you’ll create a more women-friendly firm from the bottom up. IT firms have many women, but their senior leadership, except the HR head, never has anyHARSHBEENA ZAVERI VICE CHAIRMAN AND MD, NRB BEARINGS Most investors are now vocal about inclusivity. That’s a really good thing but it hasn’t resulted in enough capital going to women. To be meaningful, 30-40% women-run businesses have to be fundedVINEETA SINGH CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, SUGAR COSMETICS In our Pantnagar factory, where 85% of the workforce is women, the productivity and agility they bring to work is higher… [there’s] a business case to employ more womenPRIYA MATHILAKATH PILLAI HEAD, HR, RETAIL AND CORPORATE, TITAN COMPANY Women founders hire three times more women than male co-founders. When you have…

DIPALI GOENKA WAS married at 18. “I come from a traditional Marwari background and it is quite normal there,” she says. However, nothing quite stopped her from wanting to learn more. Once her daughters were 10 and 7, Goenka was clear she had to get to work. She started with a design studio and, in 2003, launched Spaces, a premium bed and bath brand. “I wanted to evolve as an individual and was clear about it,” she says. Her husband B.K. Goenka, Chairman, Welspun Group, told her very clearly she would not be treated differently at work: “You are not Mrs Goenka here.” Time was spent in meeting Welspun’s distributors, being on the shop floor, and picking up every nugget of consumer insight that came by. The global financial crisis…

ISHA AMBANI COMES from quite a pedigree. As the next generation of India’s richest family, the onus of driving the group towards becoming a serious player in the new business forays falls on her shoulders. Of course, she is ably supported by her twin brother Akash in some of these ventures. She (and Akash) played a big role in the launch of Reliance Jio. She formally joined Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail in 2014. It has been widely reported that the $5.7-billion deal struck with Facebook for a 9.99 per cent stake in Reliance Jio Platforms had her complete involvement. Both the telecom and retail businesses have disrupted the status quo in the industry through technological breakthroughs. In the case of retail, the launch of Ajio, a fashion portal, and now…

AT 21, NAMITA Thapar was a qualified chartered accountant. “I was a bit of a nerd since I cleared it in the first attempt,” she laughs. A year later, she was in the US for her MBA, at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. “The average age of the class was 28 and I was much younger. They still took me,” says Thapar. Right after the programme, she spent six years at Guidant Corporation, in finance and marketing. Back home, her father and promoter of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Satish Mehta, had raised money from private equity giant Blackstone. “I was a mother by then and it’s not easy to manage all of that in the US. In my mind, the time was perfect to get back home,” points out Thapar. That…

SOMA MONDAL DESCRIBES joining SAIL in 2017 as a director from NALCO (National Aluminium Company Limited) as a game-changer: “The move was definitely disruptive since I was very well settled in NALCO, having started as a graduate trainee and rising to the Board position. SAIL was a much bigger company by way of volume, market size and presence, manpower, product mix, diversity and complexities. I had to start afresh in a new work environment. Today, I am proud to say that the decision could not have been better.” That she has done a good job of it is evident from the fact that she took charge as Chairman of the company—the first woman in the post—in January 2021, within four years of moving over. Mondal, who also holds the additional posts…

UPASANA TAKU NEVER had it easy. After doing BTech from NIT, Jalandhar, she got into Stanford University, US, but without a scholarship. Taku spent a month marketing herself door-to-door at various labs to get a research assistantship. Eventually, she secured a full scholarship, which paid the $100,000 required for her two-year Stanford programme. Four years later, Taku gave up her cushy US job at PayPal and joined a non-profit in India, which took her to several villages in states such as UP and Bihar. She later met her future husband (currently MobiKwik MD, Co-founder and CEO) Bipin Preet Singh and they decided to do something in mobile payments. “When we launched in 2009, less than 10 million Indians transacted digitally. We felt it was a huge opportunity,” says Taku, now COO…

AMEERA SHAH BET on herself twice. First, as a young woman with a non-medical background, she drove her father’s standalone diagnostics lab in 2001 to a chain of 135 labs and more than 3,000 collection centres today. Second, she took a personal debt in 2015 to up her stake in Metropolis from 36 per cent to 63 per cent to grow the company. In the next few years, the company listed, and she paid back the debt. “I took a big punt on myself that I can pull this off. And I did,” says the Promoter and MD of Metropolis. These adverse situations allowed Shah to face her fears and come out a winner many times over. Today, Metropolis is valued at ₹16,000 crore (₹2,000 crore in 2015), with revenues…

FOR ALL THAT Jyoti Deshpande has seen over three decades, nothing excites her more than crisis management. “It brings out the best in me,” she says. Her businesses are doing fairly well and the only pain point is the pandemic. “We are in a touch-and-feel business and being on the sets, for instance, was the way to do it. Doing things remotely is a challenge and it is so critical to take people with you during this period.” Two chance meetings changed the contours of Deshpande’s career. The first was with Kishore Lulla, Eros International’s Chairman, in the late 1990s. The second, with Manoj Modi, which led her to Reliance, first as President of the Chairman’s Office, then as head of Jio Studios and, currently, CEO, Viacom18, a 51:49…

AS MD AND CEO of Edelweiss’s asset management business, Radhika Gupta manages assets worth around `65,000 crore, but still squeezes time out of her busy schedule to reply to the numerous women who look up to her as a role model and write to her for guidance. Her YouTube video The girl with a broken neck has garnered views running into lakhs. The past 12-18 months saw Gupta and her team transform the fund house to go digital and, in her own words, they “never had a better period of business”. The high point for Gupta, however, was being chosen as Vice Chairperson of industry body Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). “Till then, it was a Vice Chairman post, now it is Vice Chairperson,” she says. Point to…

NITA AMBANI WEARS many hats, and quite comfortably too. She is Chairperson and Founder of the Reliance Foundation, as also Dhirubhai Ambani International School. She also sits on the board of EIH Limited (the flagship company of the Oberoi Group) and owns Mumbai Indians, one of the most successful teams in cricket’s Indian Premier League. We are not quite done. She is also a board member of Reliance Industries, India’s most valuable company by market capitalisation. Her responsibilities have had far-reaching consequences. For instance, the Reliance Foundation has impacted the lives of 45 million people in the areas of health, education, rural transformation, disaster response, urban renewal, etc. She has also made an impact on football, as the Chairperson of Football Sports Development Limited, which runs the immensely popular Indian…

VIBHA PADALKAR BELIEVES the pandemic helped her company emerge stronger because of its strong underlying digital DNA. “It was a very difficult situation. We emerged stronger, resilient, as we took a very holistic approach,” says Padalkar, MD and CEO of HDFC Life Insurance. Proof of the pudding: HDFC Life’s profits rose from `1,295 crore in FY20 to `1,360 crore in FY21. Her next objective? “We need to have a lot of our core processes, systems and products digital-ready. We need to continue to innovate because there are newer emerging risks and the pandemic is here to stay.” Tech that. MY NEXT FRONTIER We need to continue to innovate because there are newer emerging risks…

APPOINTED CEO IN 2017, Anjali Sud refocused Vimeo’s strategy and pivoted it to a SaaS (software as a service) company. Net result: Vimeo is no longer seen as a ‘me too’ of YouTube. This means it stopped investing in original content but instead focussed on expanding its toolset for creative professionals and businesses to succeed with video. Sud likes to see it more like a Slack or a Dropbox model, but for video. And in 2021, she took Vimeo public on the NASDAQ in May. Her advice for next-gen women leaders: focus time and energy on impact, and create your own opportunities. “No one is going to advocate for your career or be more strategic about it than you,” she says. “Find ways to stretch yourself, keep learning, and don’t…

‘The most important thing in business is relationships’ What was the problem you were grappling with? In 2012, we were in the handing-over stage for one of our projects when there was a dispute between our contractor and the projects team regarding the interpretation of the contract. Both teams had a different take on the scope of the work. With the contractor requesting for a larger payment, we only had two options—either litigation or making the additional payments. Who did you approach for advice? I approached my father whose judgement in such matters I implicitly trust. He asked me to evaluate both the options. Litigation would have resulted in several months of delay in our project handover, thereby affecting our customers. By making the additional payment, our profits would have…

Hitting New Highs The number of women holding directorships at NSE-listed firms has seen a sharp rise over the years. On March 31, 2013, the number stood at 586. The Independents A majority of the women on company Boards are independent directors. According to latest data, 1,770 of the total directorships held by women are independent ones. Data as of November 24, 2021; Source: Primeinfobase.com 2,748 The total number of directorships held by women in NSE-listed companies, as of November 24, 2021 27 The number of companies on the NSE which have more than three women directors on their Boards 1,892 COMPANIES are listed on the NSE 54 COMPANIES do not have even one woman director All Spots Taken These are some of the NSE-listed firms which have the most number…

IT TOOK some time, but Pawan Munjal has finally announced a foray into electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. His biggest competition? Family. Last year, Hero Electric, India’s largest electric two-wheeler firm run by his nephew Naveen Munjal, sold over 50,000 EVs. Pawan, who is Chairman and CEO of Hero MotoCorp, India’s largest two-wheeler company, is therefore late into the game. But to be fair, a 2010 family settlement barred him from using the ‘Hero’ brand name for any electric vehicle made by his firm while the global rights for Hero’s EVs were given to Naveen. So, what’s the workaround? Hero MotoCorp is soon expected to launch a new sub-brand, VIDA Electric, which will allow Pawan to sell his upcoming range of electric scooters and motorcycles. The firm has registered names like VIDA…

FOR THOSE TRACKING ANIL Ambani’s Reliance Group and Reliance Capital (RCL), the RBI superseding the company’s board did not come as a surprise. In the RBI’s own words, the action was necessitated “in view of the defaults by RCL in meeting the various payment obligations to its creditors and serious governance concerns which the Board has not been able to address effectively”. It has been around two years since RCL defaulted on its payment obligations for the first time. The firm has borrowings in the form of secured and unsecured bonds, and term loans along with guarantees given to banks and financial institutions. As per its annual report for FY21, it has already defaulted on repayment of loans and borrowing totalling ₹20,103 crore. The total financial liabilities stood at ₹20,822…

THE CAREER PATH for Ashima Goyal, whose parents were doctors, was well laid out. In fact, a studious Ashima did join Delhi University’s Hindu College for pre-medical but soon switched to BA Economics, and then completed MA, M. Phil and PhD in Economics from University of Mumbai. “It was by fluke,” grins Goyal, who was the odd woman out pursuing economics those days. An academician abroad once told her she was in the wrong country and wrong gender to do well (in the economics profession). “It sort of challenged me to prove this wrong,” says the soft-spoken Goyal. Sitting in the lush green campus of Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai, Goyal, Emeritus Professor, says she had a strong inclination to understand the Indian economy. “Things like…

TAKING EXIM BANK on an upward growth trajectory, Harsha Bangari, who joined the bank in 1995 and was Deputy Managing Director before her elevation to MD this March, has driven the bank’s resource mobilisation plan. Under her leadership, the bank maintained its enviable track record in the international debt capital markets, raising $1 billion through 10-year bonds in January 2020 and $1 billion through 10-year bonds in January 2021. Importantly, both deals were at the lowest coupon for any Indian 10-year issuer. The bank also became the first entity to list on the AFRINEX (a pan-African exchange with global reach and local presence located in Mauritius) with its $1-billion Exim 2031 bond. Her leadership is built around the core tenet of reaching all enterprises, large, medium or small, and partnering them…

FOR NEARLY TWO years, Mahima Datla and her team have been working relentlessly behind the screen to enter the Covid-19 vaccine market at the right time, with the right product. In her own words, the team crammed in 5-10 years of work into a single year. And the results are beginning to show. Biological E, which has been manufacturing vaccines for over six decades, is weeks away from launching its Covid-19 vaccine Corbevax—developed in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and California-based biopharmaceutical firm Dynavax Technologies. Biological E targets to produce one billion Corbevax doses annually, including a mandate to supply 300 million doses to the Indian government. Meanwhile, Biological E’s clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine for children are in the final phases. India’s first private sector…

WHEN THE ENTIRE world was battling Covid-19 with full force, one institution under the leadership of Dr. Priya Abraham was at the forefront of the country’s battle with the virus. Abraham took over the reins of ICMR-National Institute of Virology just two months before the pandemic struck. “The past two years were the most demanding time of my life and I spent many sleepless nights during this time,” she says. From handling the logistics of sending the testing kits to various testing labs to keeping a close watch on all new emerging variants, Abraham and her teams enabled India to make huge strides in the direction of curbing the spread of the virus. Her achievement is not only confined to maintaining the logistics; she and her institute were at the helm…

IN 1995, INDIAN youngsters were still flocking to the US for further studies. This was five years before Y2K and the subsequent boom in the demand for IT professionals. At that point, coming back to India was inconceivable. But Suchitra and Krishna Ella were different. Suchitra was in the marketing department of a large multinational, and Krishna was pursuing his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Soon after, they returned to India and launched Bharat Biotech, which now has over 2,500 employees. Over the years, Bharat Biotech has delivered vaccines globally for hepatitis B, influenza H1N1, rotavirus, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, chikungunya, zika, and the world’s first tetanus-toxoid conjugated vaccine for typhoid. “Foresight is a key attribute in the field of science. Vaccinology is all about foreseeing an emergency and preparing ahead.…

AS A SCHOOL student in Mumbai, Vinati Saraf Mutreja had a serious interest in Chemistry, one that her father Vinod Saraf spotted early. “He would keep asking me questions from my textbook,” she says with a laugh. It laid the foundation for what was to follow. In the US to study at the University of Pennsylvania, Mutreja would accompany her father to client visits when he would be in the US (Vinati Organics had been set up by then). “By this time, it was clear that working for our company was my calling.” In 2006, after returning to India, she joined the company as executive director. Right after joining, a challenge confronted her. Till then, the only product of consequence Vinati Organics made was IBB (iso butyl benzene), a raw…

FOR KAKU NA-KHATE, the biggest turning point of her career was managing the merger between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. “When I rejoined Bank of America as India CEO in 2010 after the global merger with Merrill Lynch, I had to oversee the entire merger process and also lead the bank… That was a major turning point for me,” says Nakhate, who has earlier worked with DSP Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan. Under Nakhate’s watch, Bank of America has helped Indian entities raise more than $60 billion over the past decade. And in the past one year or so, she has made the bank the go-to banker for unicorns and for foreign investors looking to invest in the Indian market—she facilitated Facebook’s $5.7-billion investment in Reliance Jio last year. What…

SHOBANA KAMINE-NI, EXECUTIVE Vice Chairperson of Chennai-based multinational hospital chain Apollo Hospitals Enterprise and a member of its founding family, is the main force behind Apollo’s digital foray, and she has left no stone unturned in keeping pace with the fast-changing dynamics of the industry. Kamineni has many feathers in her cap, from heading India’s largest pharmacy chain Apollo Pharmacy to being a founding member of insurance company Apollo Munich Health Insurance, which is now merged with HDFC ERGO. She is now steering the organisation’s digital-first healthcare service initiative through Apollo 24/7. She is well-known for leading Apollo’s research and innovation activities, which are at the centre of convergence between the healthcare, pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Kamineni is also known for creating and incubating a Biobank—a catalogued library of ethically…

“DURING THIS TIME (Covid-19), we have seen both ups and downs,” says entrepreneur Meena Ganesh. Home healthcare firm Portea rolled up its sleeves and rolled out operations in 30 cities (from 20) during the pandemic, bolstering its digital health solutions beyond tele-consultations, and introduced more critical care services at home. Conversely, Growth-Story’s portfolio firm HungerBox, a cafeteria management solution provider, suffered as offices shut down. Ganesh is unperturbed. “For Portea, we expect 30-40 per cent growth for the next few years. We will also look at strategic options, including M&As, because this is the time of growth for this industry.” Hear, hear. MY NEXT FRONTIER Launch more critical care services at home to help people avoid hospital visits…

HOW WELL-ENTRENCHED is the concept of mental health? The question gains utmost relevance amid the pandemic. To Neerja Birla, Founder and Chairperson, Mpower, an initiative by the Aditya Birla Education Trust, it has become the pandemic within the pandemic. “Almost overnight, we ended up in a world where millions needed support to deal with the mental health impact of the pandemic,” she says. It’s a critical issue, Birla says, as “irrespective of your profession or socioeconomic background, mental health is what empowers you to live your best life”. Her goal is clear: “We will open more centres and identify opportunities for collaboration so that we can continue to grow our impact.” MY NEXT FRONTIER We want to keep growing across all five verticals—Mpower movement, clinical care, outreach, academia, Mpower helpline…

HANDLING 40 PER CENT of the over `45,000-crore business of FMCG market leader Hindustan Unilever is no mean task, and Priya Nair, Executive Director of the Beauty and Personal Care (BPC) business, does that with elan. Having been in the company nearly three decades certainly helps. In the quarter ended September 30, 2021, sales of the Nairled BPC division rose 10 per cent, which was better than the 7 per cent of the Foods & Refreshment division, albeit lower than Home Care’s 15 per cent. She has also led sustainability initiatives for HUL with a focus on WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene). HUL’S NEXT FRONTIER Impactful innovations and activations; focus remains on consistent, profitable, responsible growth…

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has dealt a body blow to several restaurateurs, but not to Smita Jatia’s will. Business has returned to normal, and so has Jatia’s verve. The director of Westlife Development is now preparing to double business in five-six years. The company, which is franchise partner for McDonald’s with 310 outlets across 42 cities in West and South India, is on track to match its pre-pandemic annual sales levels of `1,500 crore in FY22. Jatia plans to invest `800-1,000 crore to add dozens of restaurants each year, starting FY23. She draws inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita, which gives her the real purpose of what she is doing. “When you have this clarity, everything comes more easily to you.” MY NEXT FRONTIER To successfully execute the succession of the company’s…

YEAR 2021’S ONLY entrant into BT’s Most Powerful Women Hall of Fame (an exclusive club of seven-time winners of the MPW awards), Rekha M. Menon never loses sight of the most critical component in business—the people. “Compassion and putting our people first served as the North Star for all decisions during the toughest phases [of the pandemic],” says Menon, Chairperson and Senior Managing Director of Accenture in India. In the second wave of the pandemic, Menon introduced several initiatives such as medical care at home and hospitalisation support for Accenture’s employees, and was among the first in its industry to announce vaccination cover for all 250,000-plus employees and eligible dependents. But it wasn’t all about Accenture. In May 2021, she worked with Accenture’s global CEO Julie Sweet to get a…

HOW DO YOU manage a zooming, sorry, booming business? Ask Aparna Bawa. The Chief Operating Officer and Interim Chief Legal Officer of Zoom is responsible for daily operations—designing, implementing and supervising business operations, and establishing policies that promote company culture. No big deal? Not quite. With demand for video communication shooting through the roof owing to Covid-19, Zoom registered a 470 per cent increase in its customer base to 4,67,100 companies (with more than 10 employees each) from April 2020 to March 2021. That resulted in a, eh, booming revenue growth of 326 per cent to $2.65 billion—and 869 per cent growth in net cash flow—in FY21. How did she manage? “[When starting out in my career], I often took on too many projects at the same time,” says Bawa.…

APART FROM SETTING screens afire in Bollywood and, later, Hollywood through her roles in Baywatch (2017) and drama-series Quantico (2015-18), Priyanka Chopra has opened up her purse strings for more mundane pursuits, relatively speaking. In 2015, she and her mother launched Purple Pebble Pictures, a film and TV studio to promote regional filmmakers. In 2018, she made her first big investment in Bumble, a dating app, following up with an investment in Holberton School for software engi New neering—a coding education start-up. In 2021, she invested in US-based rental marketplace Apartment List; and in Genies, a virtual avatar firm, along with Camila Cabello and Paris Hilton. She also opened a restaurant—Sona—in New York, and released her own line of sustainable hair care products titled Anomaly. At a start-up event in January,…