Women on top in the South

Series on women who have taken charge in a male dominion

Whether it is in medicine, hospitals or the testosterone-dominated world of tractors, a surprising number of women have inherited the top job down south. Here is the first in a series on women who have taken charge of a traditionally male-dominated world.

Tractor queen: Mallika Srinivasan

In a male-dominated automobile industry, one woman who stands heads and shoulders above her peer group is 52-year-old Mallika Srinivasan, who has, over sixteen years, grown the Rs 86-crore Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE) — one of the country’s largest tractor manufacturer — to a Rs 5,800 -crore company. (Mallika is now the chairman and chief executive officer of TAFE.)

Mallika — that’s what she goes by at the company and in the industry incidentally — has always lived the way she wanted to. Her father, the late A Sivasailam, who headed the Rs 7,000-crore Amalgamations Group, had suggested she study literature, but Mallika had different ideas. She sought and obtained admission to an MBA programme into storied Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania — one of the world’s most prestigious business schools. On her return from the US, she joined TAFE, a group company of Amalgamations as general manager (planning and coordination). “There was no pressure to join the family business, but there was encouragement if you wanted it. I grew up in a family of businessmen. I had a keen interest in the business, since I grew up hearing my father always discussing the challenges of doing business.”

Mallika’s biggest challenge was the four years between 2000 and 2004 when the automobile industry, including TAFE, experienced a terrible slump. TAFE’s sales fell from 49,000 to 24,000 tractors in just one year. Mallika Srinivasan turned the setback into an opportunity, investing heavily in research and development, and launched new products. In a surprise — and brilliantly opportunistic — move, she also acquired Eicher Motors in 2005, which catapulted TAFE to the second slot in the country. “Good timing is what will make an acquisition good. This acquisition also showed our understanding of the industry and our confidence in our decision,” she says.

Industry sources say that she was instrumental in modernising and introducing technically-sophisticated products to the company that helped the company grow to its current industry position, which is right behind Mahindra and US-based tractor king John Deere. Compared to around 4,000 tractors a year in 1985, the group now manufactures 120,000 annually.

Despite working in a family-owned company, Mallika’s entry into the firm twenty-six years ago wasn’t accepted unanimously by some of the senior cadre who had been with her father since 1964. “Again, it is not the question of being a women. They were sceptical because I was new. They were the ones who established the company, so it was nothing wrong, but once I proved to them that I could add value, they accepted me. This is general in any organisation or a team,” said Mallika.

Naturally, Mallika strongly believes, gender doesn’t matter. The key should be the area you choose to work in and the passion you exhibit for your work, which you must enjoy. This is the first criteria to become successful, she says. “Work hard and everything else will fall in place,” she adds.

The soft-spoken Mallika says one of her biggest strengths is managing people, which she learnt from her late father. “He was superb in dealing with people, and always empathised with and supported those who worked with him. He always believed in objective decision-making, and has been a great teacher. He would throw you challenges, and, if you succeeded, he would throw you some new ones.” If he were alive today, there might not be many more gauntlets that he could throw down to his super-achieving daughter, who has become a role model for women within the family and outside it.

Like mother, like daughter

LAKSHMI VENU,
VP, Global Business Development and Strategy, Sundaram Clayton Ltd

The over-100-year-old TVS Group has now paved way for the next generation, with four women on its board of directors.

The most recent entrant is 28-year-old Lakshmi Venu, daughter of Mallika and Venu Srinivasan.  She was appointed as a director (strategy) at Sundaram Clayton Ltd, a holding company of TVS Motor, in September last year, and promoted recently to be the vice-president (global business development and strategy).

Her ascent wasn’t exactly a pre-destined ‘done deal’. Lakshmi(we can’t call her Venu since that could confuse things vis-a-vis her father)  underwent her initial training for three years as a management trainee at Sundaram Auto Components Ltd, a subsidiary of SCL, in 2003. No academic lightweight, Lakshmi  is a graduate from Yale University, and holds a doctorate in engineering management from the University of Warwick.

Meanwhile, the other ladies at TVS are going strong. Arathi Krishna and Arundathi Krishna, daughters of Suresh Krishna, CMD, Sundram Fasteners, are spearheading the company’s future business initiatives. Currently Arathi serves as a joint managing director of the company, while her sister Arundathi is a full-time director of the company. Then, there’s Shobana Ramachandran, who has been steering Madurai-based TVS Srichakra as the MD. She is the daughter of Late R Ramachandran, who was the chairman of TVS Sundaram Iyengar & Sons.  Somehow, the girl child seems to be doing quite alright down south.