When Manu Chhabria died in April 2002 and Vidya, 55, took over the reins of the Jumbo Group, few felt that she would be able to survive the street fight with UB Group supremo Vijay Mallya.
The odds were stacked against her. The fact that Mallya has finally settled for peace is being seen within industry circles as a victory for her.
Twice cited by Fortune amongst the 50 most powerful women in business internationally (44th in 2002 and 38th in 2003), Vidya is firmly in control of the $2 billion Jumbo group.
Aided by her second daughter Komal Chhabria Wazir, her brother Niranjan Thakur and a band of high-profile executives, she has not only fought off rivals but also grown the business. The high watermark was when she got SABMiller as a joint venture partner in Shaw Wallace Breweries.
Like her late husband, Vidya is a Shikarpuri Sindhi known best for their financial acumen. After Partition, her family had settled down in Bangalore. When she married Manu Chhabria in the early 1970s, he was working in the family electronics shop in Mumbai.
But he wanted to move to Dubai in order to realise his dreams of making it big. Leaving her eldest daughter Bhavika behind, Vidya went with her husband to the land of promise. The rest is history.
Jumbo Group's flagship company, Jumbo Electronics Company Ltd (LLC), was founded in 1974. The company is now the largest distributor of consumer electronics, IT and telecom in west Asia. It is the largest distributor of Sony products in the world.
So long as Manu Chhabria was there, Vidya was rarely seen as a part of the Jumbo business, preferring to play the role of homemaker. After his death, she came to occupy centre stage.
Leaving the day-to-day running of the business to executives, Vidya spends most of her time in Dubai, though she visits Mumbai occasionally.
The management discipline closest to her heart is human resource development especially in terms of training, development and motivation. She often tells her friends that any organisation is only as capable as its people.
An avid reader and traveller, Vidya is known to be fond of Indian music and cuisine. With Mallya becoming a friendly neighbour, she sure will have time to indulge in her hobbies.
But that is only one problem off her back "" she has another one to straighten out. Her eldest daughter, Bhavika Godhwani, raised the banner of revolt over an year back demanding her share of the Jumbo empire. The matter is yet to be settled, though the family dirty linen is no longer being washed in public.
