{"id":2491,"date":"2018-09-24T00:22:36","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T00:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/they-were-not-comfortable-about-hiring-a-woman\/"},"modified":"2018-09-24T00:22:36","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T00:22:36","slug":"they-were-not-comfortable-about-hiring-a-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/they-were-not-comfortable-about-hiring-a-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"‘They were not comfortable about hiring a woman’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"KiranImage copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is India’s richest self-made woman
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The BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of Indian pharmaceutical company Biocon.<\/p>\n

When Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw wanted to get a job at a brewery, they all said “no” because she was a woman.<\/p>\n

This was back in 1978, when the then 25-year-old had returned to her homeland of India with a master’s degree in brewing from a university in Australia.<\/p>\n

Despite having this qualification every Indian beer company that she contacted “said it was not going to be possible” to take her on.<\/p>\n

“They admitted that hiring a woman as a brewer was something they would not be comfortable with,” says Ms Mazumdar-Shaw, now 65.<\/p>\n

While the situation was obviously very unfair, you could say it was fate that pulled her away from the brewing industry.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Biocon<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n She launched Biocon in 1978 when she was just 25
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unable to get work as a brewer in India, she instead founded pharmaceutical business Biocon.<\/p>\n

Today this company is worth more than 400bn rupees ($5.6bn; \u00a34.3bn), and Ms Mazumdar-Shaw’s personal wealth is estimated at $3.5bn (\u00a327bn). This makes her India’s only self-made female billionaire.<\/p>\n

Born and brought up in a middle class family in Bangalore, she gained a degree in zoology from the city’s namesake university, before going to Australia to study brewing.<\/p>\n

When no Indian brewer would then employ her she decided to look overseas instead. And so she was due to start a job at a brewery in Scotland, when she had a chance meeting with an Irish entrepreneur called Leslie Auchincloss.<\/p>\n

He was keen to set up a pharmaceutical business in India, and he was so impressed by Ms Mazumdar-Shaw that he asked her to be his partner and lead the business.<\/p>\n

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Media playback is unsupported on your device<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

Media caption<\/span>Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s top tips to succeed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ms Mazumdar-Shaw initially turned him down. “I told him, I am the last person he should ask because I had no business experience, and I had no money to invest,” she says.<\/p>\n

But Mr Auchincloss ultimately persuaded her to give it a shot, and Biocon was born in 1978. <\/p>\n

Ms Mazumdar-Shaw started the business out of a garage, investing her life savings of $150. And again her gender continued to be a stumbling block, as no-one was willing to work for a woman.<\/p>\n

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More <\/strong>The Boss<\/a> features, which every week profile a different business leader from around the world:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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“It was not just men, even women were not willing to work for another woman,” she says. “They would walk into the garage and see me. They would assume I am the secretary.”<\/p>\n

After seeing 40 candidates she was finally able to hire her first employee – a retired garage mechanic.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Mallikarjun Katakol<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n The company makes a range of biopharmaceuticals – drugs made from natural, biological sources
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Raising capital was the other big challenge – as banks were not willing to give her a loan to start the business.<\/p>\n

“I was only 25 years old, so the banks felt that I was a girl trying to run a business which nobody understood, I was really high risk in every sense of the word,” she says.<\/p>\n

Finally one banker agreed to give her a loan in 1979.<\/p>\n

Biocon started out manufacturing enzymes used in the production of alcoholic drinks, paper and other products. Most of its clients were based in the US and Europe.<\/p>\n

For the brewing industry it made an enzyme from papaya fruit that prevented beers from being hazy.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Pete Souza<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw mixes with world leaders
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By the beginning of this century the company had started focusing on producing biopharmaceuticals, which are medicines that are made from a biological source.<\/p>\n

This proved increasingly lucrative, and in 2004, Biocon became only the second Indian company to cross the one-billion-dollar mark on the day it floated on the National Stock Exchange of India.<\/p>\n

“That was a huge eureka moment for me because we knew we were very different, but we hadn’t really ever visited the value creation that had happened along the way,” says Ms Mazumdar-Shaw. who holds the title of chairperson.<\/p>\n

For its most recent financial year, the company’s revenues were $172m, and its profits totalled $18m. Now operating in more than 100 countries, some 68% of its income comes from international markets. Its key products include a range of insulin drugs.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n Ms Mazumdar-Shaw’s husband John Shaw is Biocon’s vice chairman
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Kiran has been very disciplined about focusing on biopharmaceuticals,” says Abhimanyu Sofat, head of research at financial services group India Infoline.<\/p>\n

He adds that if Biocon’s latest drugs get regulatory approval in more countries, then the company could see profits “rise four to five times by 2021”.<\/p>\n

Looking forward Ms Mazumdar-Shaw, who owns 40% of Biocon’s shares, says she wants to take on the large Western pharmaceutical companies. “I want to challenge the big boys,” she says.<\/p>\n

Her success in business has seen her win numerous awards in India, including the Padma Bhushan, one of the country’s highest civilian honours.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Biocon<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n The company has more than 9,000 employees
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking at the wider Indian business community, she says that she is “very disappointed” that there aren’t other self-made female billionaires.<\/p>\n

However, Ms Mazumdar-Shaw is optimistic that things are changing.<\/p>\n

‘I hope in the next 10 years a lot more self-made women billionaires will emerge,” she says. “At this point in time, I don’t mind even if they’re not self-made. I just want more women playing more leadership roles in business.”<\/p>\n

To help do her bit Ms Mazumdar-Shaw, also mentors a lot of up and coming entrepreneurs, both male and female.<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw regularly speaks at business conferences
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\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She says her advice to them is that “failure is temporary, but giving up is final”.<\/p>\n

“So don’t fear failure. Endure and make sure you get to the finishing line.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is India’s richest self-made woman The BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of Indian pharmaceutical company Biocon. When Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw wanted to get a job at a brewery, they all said “no” because … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}