Suchitra Ella, managing director, Bharat Biotech Ltd | Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL
“Gender equity begins at home.” When two accomplished women leaders declare that idea to be absolutely true, basing its veracity on their own experience, one would want to have them elaborate on it. And the two women leaders in question, Geetanjali Kirloskar and Suchitra Ella, did. Those in the audience were leaders in their own right as the setting was the Confederation of Indian Industry Southern Region’s conference titled “The Deccan Conversations: Accelerating our Growth Story”.
Married young into a family rooted in manufacturing business, Geetanjali Kirloskar, chairperson and managing director, Kirloskar Systems Limited, recalled her father-in-law asking her to not spend time in the kitchen but at the shop floor of their machine tool factory. A business graduate with years of working in a cabin behind her, Geetanjali found herself challenged by those hours every day at the shop floor, but it did not take her long to see the benefits of this work schedule. Thanks to this work schedule, she says, she developed grit and determination. Geetanjali is thankful to her family life for that.
Geetanjali believes to increase the participation of women in shop-floor work, the level of skilling has to pick up and labour reform are required “We need strong gender diversity integrated at the shop floor from day one itself,” said Geetanjali.
Born to a mining engineer and growing up with three siblings, two sisters and one brother, Suchitra Ella, co-founder and managing director, Bharat Biotech Ltd., found the environment at home to be affirmative of gender equality.
Suchitra said her father was generous in the encouragement he provided her and her siblings to think differently, and that message applied as much to the girl children as to the lone boy child in the family.
In the 1980s, Suchitra married a genetics engineer and moved to the United States. Along with her husband, she started Bharat Biotech. Suchitra notes that through his actions and decisions at every step of the way, her husband demonstrated that entrepreneurship does not have a gender.
From the manufacturing sector, both women said the right eco-system needs to be created for women to excel. More stories of women achievers need to be shared, they said.
Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII and Chairman, Axilor Ventures (P) Ltd, chaired the panel.
