The Journey Of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the richest woman in India and the owner of Biocon India, had quite a different journey planned for her when she started out. When Shaw was announced as the managing director of Biocon India, little was known about the lady who would work to become one of the most influential women in the country. While there was a lot of attention coming Biocon’s way, not many knew that Kiran was running the entire show from the garage of her home! The beginning days of Biocon were just like those of other great startups and had only two employees (and the blessings of Shaw’s father.)

The beginning 

Growing up, Kiran was in awe of how tuned in India as a country was to the field of science and chemistry. The daughter of a Master Brewer, Kiran always wanted to do something in the same field as her family’s business. Despite it not being a commonly followed career choice by women, Kiran decided to break the barriers and for most of her early adult life, worked to achieve her goals. With her family behind her decision and ready to push her forward not matter what, Kiran decided to pursue her dreams by joining a brewery course at Ballarat College, Melbourne University. Although she came back to India with a degree in hand, Mazumdar realised her dreams were far from coming true.

By the late ’70s, the fight was so hard, Kiran had no choice but to look for an alternative. She was refused job after job and everywhre she went, people started saying no. Even those who said yes to her plan initially, were now saying no. However, Kiran could not give up. She could not say no to making her dreams come true. Just when she thought she was stuck at a dead end, she decided to shift lanes and pick biotech as the alternative course. With no knowledge in this field and no idea on how to start building this firm, Shaw definitely had her work cut out. The only thing she knew biotech and brewing had in common was that both had the same sense of mixtures and proportions that go into creating the final product!

Picture credits: entrepreneur.com

The journey to the top

At a time when women doing anything out of what was expected was a mythical fact, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw showed everyone that her dream was worth a lot more than what society said or thought. Fueled with the belief that if you wanted to do something, you just had to make it come true, Shaw changed the field of biotech in India forever. Biotechnology as a field wasn’t known to the world when Shaw entered and at the time, bankers were extremely apprehensive about giving their money to a field they knew nothing about. It was only after after the first IPO Biocon raised, that people realised Shaw wasn’t here to joke around!

Picture credits: businessworld.com

With a net worth of $ 3.2 billion, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is now among the top richest women in the world and is named as one of the most influential people in the world of science and technology (according to Forbes.) Not only did she grow Biocon to a stage where it is the 4th largest producer of insulin in the world, as a part of the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade  and Industry in India and the US-India CEO Forum, Kiran works every day to better the world one cure at a time!