Radhika Bajoria

From being the coffee and pizza delivery girl in the office to becoming a CEO at just 33 - here's how Manisha Girotra rose up & is now the India CEO of Moelis & Company!

▶ Disciplined beginnings:

Manisha was brought up in a family where coming second in class was also introspected. In my conversation, she recollects how her mother, being a math professor, was obsessive about hardwork & excelling.

She studied at the Delhi School of Economics and was among the top 50 that Grindlays Bank hired in India.

▶ Made to count the number of pencils, and tables in her first job:

Besides being the gold medallist in her university, she was told to make statements of the office stuff like 2,000 pencils, 200 tables, 30 fans.

At Grindlays, she was also asked to get coffee and pizza occasionally. Yet she stuck to her job to see what it takes for people to build more confidence in her.

▶ Being one of the very few in investment banking:

It was difficult for people to see a woman banker. Often they assumed that she was the secretary!

'Clients would not shake my hands', she said. Manisha was asked awkward questions about her marriage which she had to keep on the side by saying, 'I’m not here to talk about that!'

▶ Secret behind the stellar career climb:

By not giving up & keeping all the biases she faced on the side, by age 33, Manisha became the CEO at UBS.

▶ Challenges while climbing up the 'momporate' ladder:

She recollects, 'I once came back after cracking an $18-20 bn deal & my daughter had to take some puppets to school the next day. My mom made me make those puppets from 3 -7 am arguing that I simply had to do it'.

▶ Setting up a foreign investment bank in India with just a secretary on the team!

From heading an organization of 15,000 people at UBS, Manisha started up again with Moelis in India with just one secretary and a computer.

She has been at the helm of big-ticket deals – like Vodafone’s acquisition of Hutch, United Spirits' buyout of Whyte & Mackey, Hindalco’s acquisition of Novelis, etc. She is also on boards of companies like Ashok Leyland and Mindtree.

✔ Watch my conversation on Radically Yours with Manisha as she talks about all this & more: https://lnkd.in/dPSUw3xY

Work can make women better moms without guilt, just like providing for family makes a man a better dad. Agree?

#womeninbusiness

From taking over as a chairman at the age of 28 to making the Aditya Birla Group, third largest in India, here’s how Kumar Mangalam Birla started up.

After the death of his father Aditya Vikram Birla, Kumar took over. In his words, he said, “his death left me with no choice but to grow up fast”.

In 1995, under his #leadership, he managed to grow Aditya Birla Group from $2 bn to $46.3 bn!!

• But how did he do all of this at such a young age?

Veterans admire him for his composed nature. For ex, on the same day of the funeral, Kumar wanted to meet the CFO of Grasim to set the stage right. And on the same night of his father's funeral, he wrote a #motivating page and a half to the key executives at Birla.

The very next day of the funeral, Kumar held a meeting with all the directors of their group companies. He was set in his mind to take up this new role of a 'chairman'.

It was a tough #challenge for Kumar to convince their top executives, twice his age, on his ability to scale up the group's businesses.

• So how did he create a mark?

~ Being the only son, he used all the money that his father (who headed the then $1.6 bn group), left to make strategic 'acquisitions' which positioned him above anyone else!

In 20 years, he made 40 #acquisitions in India as well as globally. Some of the notable ones being,

1. His first high-profile acquisition was in 2003 when he bought a majority stake in L&T’s cement unit and renamed it UltraTech Cement only to become India’s largest cement maker.

2. Birla and AT&T jointly started a telecom venture in 1996 only to call it off as most telecom players were making losses. But Kumar took a call & in 2006, bought out his partners & started Idea Cellular Ltd.

3. Acquired Novelis in 2007 for $6 bn (second-largest acquisition made by an Indian company at that time).

Handling a tragic succession, he took bold steps & is today the 10th richest Indian. Unlike his father, he believed in efficiency over loyalty. Do you think this formula holds good always?

From being a rickshaw puller and getting teased by people for his experimentations to changing his fate and becoming a well-known innovator, here's how Dharambir Kamboj rose up from poverty to earn ~65 lakh, annually via his patented machine.

Born in 1963 in Haryana, Dharambir was forced to stop studying to provide financial #support to his family.

In the early 80s, he left his village & moved to Delhi in search of a better livelihood. Without a degree, he couldn't find anything & took up odd jobs like being a cycle rickshaw puller.

After a year of doing that, he found a public library near the Delhi railway station and started reading on #farming-related subjects in his free time.

After an accident in Delhi, he had to move back to his village in Haryana. And he decided to stay there after the recovery.

• Determination to change life:

What he read in Delhi's library stuck with him & he took one step ahead by attending training programs in his village where they taught #agricultural practices for 6 months.

With the program, he got an opportunity to visit Rajasthan & learnt how Aloe Vera crop's extracts give medicinal value. He found this to be a good market & looked for processing machines to produce crop extracts in Haryana.

In 2002, a bank manager educated him on the right #machinery but quoted Rs 5 lakh for selling.

• Adversity is the father of re-invention:

Considering the high pricing of the machine & Dharambir's strong determination to make a dent, he started #experimenting to develop a machine in-house.

People in the village teased him for this and didn't take him seriously. Even his father thought that he was just wasting his time.

• Destiny favours those, who believe in themselves and keep going:

With an investment of Rs 25,000, he started working fully on developing the machine and over 8 months he launched his first prototype of Multipurpose Processing Machine.

Today, Dharambir sells these machines across 15 countries & for his #innovation, the Haryana State even awarded him in 2009.

From just having an idea to getting it implemented even when no one believed in it, and making it recognised by the whole state requires a great amount of #dedication & perseverance.

Your biggest asset is not always money, but hard work, self-belief and a desire to learn. Agree?

2012: Instagram founders thought that $1 billion was a lot for them, they sold Instagram to Facebook.

Almost 10 years later...

Mid 2021: Instagram's valuation has jumped to $600 billion!!!

Time and patience can manifold your value into something that you never imagined.
Believe in the unimaginable! It can exist!

Thoughts?

2000:

Netflix posted its first double-digit revenue of approx Rs 250 Cr

2020:

After 20 years, Netflix clocked in approx Rs 20 Cr per hour!!

Patience, situation and determination can change the fate!

What other learning do you gauge from this example of Netflix?

Here's an infographic by The Representative on influential #women hailing from different backgrounds, having proved their mettle by being successful in their respective industries.

“Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.” – Hilary Clinton

In these contemporary times women are no longer confined to the four walls.

Yet, in #India we just have 6 women billionaires as of 2019 Forbes list of richest people.

Out of 1,814 chief executives & MDs of NSE-listed companies, only 67, or 3.69% are women as of March 6, 2019!

This has remained stagnant since March 2014 when out of 1,249 CEOs/MDs, 40, or 3.2%, were women.

These powerful women, in the image are not only rich and powerful but also have done some exemplar work as #philanthropists

Their innovativeness, brilliance and talent has resulted them in reaching a position of utmost fame, today!

Do you think these exceptionally talented women will be able to #influence the younger women of the nation to achieve more?

Do you also think we can have more women leaders & billionaires by 2025, given the right encouragement?

The Representative

From going to Wharton at the age of 18 to doing MBA from Stanford and joining Goldman, here's how Lavanya Ashok made a name for herself in an industry where not many women are seen!

▶ Childhood:

Coming from a family where her mother came from a small town in Bihar and went on to study at IIM Bangalore, Lavanya was inspired to have a career in finance.

Her love for finance grew at #wharton and furthered when she joined Goldman Sachs on Wall Street as an intern.

▶ MBA from Stanford and life post that:

In 2008, she studied MBA from Stanford and joined Goldman Sachs India as their third employee.

As she rose up the ladder, she led a team of 12 & managed the $8 billion global private equity fund in India!

✔ At a young age, in her early 30s, she became the managing director for #privateequity at Goldman!

▶ Time to move on from being in India with a global brand to being in India with an Indian fund:

Lavanya joined Trifecta Capital’s growth equity fund & was their first female partner!

Watch my #conversation with her as she recollects the challenging yet interesting deals she worked on at each stage of her career and how she delivered a big deal amidst her pregnancy too.

▶ Link to the interview: https://lnkd.in/dHgngM4m

Do you think we can see more women in senior positions in private equity soon?

This man started a dosa batter company with just Rs 20,000 and made it a Rs 2000 crore brand!

From being a coolie's son & failing in school to joining IIM-B & building a Idli Dosa batter company worth Rs 2000 cr - here's how Musthafa P. became India's breakfast king!

Born in a remote village in Kerala, Musthafa‘s mother never went to school, his father worked as a coolie. And he used to help his father after school to earn extra for the family.

▶️ From failing many times to becoming a topper:

Musthafa repeatedly failed in the 6th standard only to become a topper after 4 years, in 10th board exam. He went onto become an engineer.

▶️ A life changing, Eureka moment:

One day, one of Musthafa’s cousins suggested to start producing & selling dosa batter as the one sold in market was not in hygienic plastic bags.

Without wasting much time, he invested Rs 20,000 and started out of a 50 sq. ft kitchen area.

▶️From producing 10 packets a day in 2005 to selling 100,000 packets a day now

iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd. took 9 months to sell 100 packets a day & get 20 loyal customers!!

✔️2016: It was after 10 years of inception, that iD Fresh hit Rs 100 cr in revenue.
✔️2017: Revenues increased by 80% to Rs 182 cr.

Recently, they gave a huge exit to their early Series A investor, Helion Ventures after 7 years with 10x returns!!

Their zero-inventory business model has made them grow so fast, to an extent that it recently launched the world’s largest idli-dosa factory in Karnataka.

Making the most of the suggested opportunity & sheer determination towards one vision can truly change your life. Agree?

The Tata Group's shining star, Tata Consultancy Services becomes the 2nd Indian company to cross ₹9 Trillion m-cap after Reliance Industries Limited, whose market valuation is currently at ₹15,78,732.92 Cr

~What significance does this hold for the group?

•According to a BNP Paribas report, the IT Services sector is best placed to beat the work from home blues.

•TCS is one of the best-placed stocks in the IT space

•It is most likely to be benefitted from the work-from-home culture, thus giving the whole business, a boost.

•TCS is also targeting 75% of the global workforce to work from home by 2025.

•This could result in huge savings as travel accounts for almost 2% of overall revenue!

After having underperformed in the last 3 months, in the past week it suddenly outperformed the market by gaining 4%, as compared to a 1.7% rise in the S&P BSE Sensex

~How did growth take place even after weak set of numbers for Q1 FY21?

•IT services are best positioned wherein there are EBIT gains of up to 2-5% for the large companies even if they are able to retain half of the cost savings over the medium term

Do you think the market for TCS can also slip if underperformed & snatch away its golden title of being the 2nd Indian firm to cross ₹9 Lakh Crore Mcap?

The Representative