Brewer, banker, bureaucrat and broadcaster: today they are India’s well-known names and faces. But, their road to success was not always paved or lined with roses, claimed a handful of acclaimed women on Tuesday.
They form the subject of banker Naina Lal Kidwai’s new book 30 women in power .
Similar qualities led them to fame and fortune, be it the passion for their chosen field, ambition, hard work, drive to excel, perseverance, and above all, the will to beat sceptics and odds.
The achievers shared their agonies and early struggles before a 100-strong gathering at a panel discussion hosted by FICCI Ladies Organisation’s Bengaluru chapter. The event also marked the release of the book authored by Ms. Kidwai, who is HSBC’s Country Head and group General Manager.
For a price
For the women achievers, success did come with a cost: making tough personal choices, lack of ‘me-time’, high risks, gender bias, long-distance marriage and other sacrifices. A supportive family was a bonus.
The city’s corporate poster girl Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director of the Rs. 3,000-crore Biocon Ltd., called herself an accidental entrepreneur. After qualifying as India’s first woman brewmaster from Australia in 1976, she found no takers for her fermentation skills. “My early days were challenging. I was a high risk as a woman and as a biotechnologist, and faced huge credibility challenges. Banks would not lend to me. All I wanted was to prove to the people who rejected me that they were wrong.”
Nirupama Rao, former Foreign Secretary and former ambassador to the U.S., described herself as a Bengaluru-bred girl. At 15, she knew that she wanted to be in the Indian Foreign Service. She went on to top the 1973 civil services examination. Her dream job was wonderfully strewn with interesting people and lands, and interacting with the who’s who of Indian and world politics.
“There were a lot of challenges also, uphill terrains, long spells of separations from my husband,” she said. The first woman spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs is married to fellow bureaucratSudhakar Rao.
The event featured Shaheen Mistri, founder of Teach for India/Akanksha Foundation, and Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor of CNBC TV18. The U.K.-educated Ms. Mistri was moved by the educational inequities in the country and started her organisation to teach underprivileged children.
Ms. Bhan, who tasted success early in life as a business TV personality, said she was annoyed by the glamourization of people’s success and undermining of their struggles and merits.
Women achievers share their agonies and early struggles
at a panel discussion hosted by FICCI Ladies Organisation’s Bengaluru chapter
