Powerful Indian women leaders in Pharmaceutical & Healthcare
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman & Managing Director, Biocon Limited
A successful technocrat of global standing, Ms. Shaw heads India’s leading biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. She is highly respected in the corporate world and has been named among ‘TIME’ magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Recently, ‘Economic Times’ placed her at India Inc’s top 10 most powerful women CEO for the year 2012. Her pioneering efforts in biotechnology have drawn global recognition both for Indian Industry and Biocon.Ms Shaw chairs Karnataka’s Vision Group on Biotechnology and also served on the Board of Science Foundation, Ireland. She serves on the Advisory Council of the Government’s Department of Biotechnology where she has been instrumental in bringing government, industry and academia together, to chart a clear and progressive growth path for biotechnology in India. She is also part of the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry in India and the US-India CEO Forum. Ms. Shaw serves as Member, Governing Body and General Body of the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission, an Autonomous Body of the Government of India. She is also a member of the Union Commerce Ministry-instituted committee to advise the government on India’s export promotion strategy. She is a member of committee of Indian National Corporate governance policy to prepare a draft for a concept paper. She serves as a Member of the Eminent Persons Group of the Competition Commission of India, New Delhi. She is a Member of India Advisory Board for the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. She’s also on the honorary Board of advisors of The National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS), USA.
She is a founder member of the Society for the formation of “Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine”. Ms. Shaw has been nominated as Member of the Board of Trade, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry. Moreover, she is serving on the Global Advisory Committee for its “Women and the Green Economy Campaign” (WAGE)™ initiative that engages woman business, government, and NGO leaders to help create and develop a global green economy.
Ms. Shaw is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Nikkei Asia Prize, 2009 for Regional Growth, Express Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit Award 2009 for Dynamic Entrepreneur, the Economic Times ‘Businesswoman of the Year’, the ‘Veuve Clicquot Initiative For Economic Development For Asia, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences & Healthcare, ‘Technology Pioneer’ recognition by World Economic Forum and The Indian Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award. Her most cherished awards are the national awards, PADMASHRI (1989) and PADMA BHUSHAN (2005) presented to her by the President of India, for her pioneering efforts in Industrial Biotechnology.
Ms. Shaw received a graduate honors degree in Zoology from Bangalore University (1973) and qualified as a Master Brewer from Ballarat University, Australia (1975). Ms Shaw also received an honorary Doctorate of Science in 2004, from her alma mater, Ballarat University, in recognition of her pre-eminent contributions to the field of biotechnology. She has also been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Abertay, Dundee, U.K. (2007), University of Glasgow, U.K. (2008) and Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K. (2008). She recently received an honorary Doctorate of Science by the National University of Ireland (2012) for her contribution to economic life and was also conferred an honorary doctorate by Trinity college Dublin (2012).
Under her stewardship, Biocon has evolved from its inception in 1978 as an industrial enzymes company to a fully integrated Biopharmaceutical enterprise encompassing a well-balanced business portfolio of products and services with a research focus on Diabetes, Oncology and Auto-immune disease. During this transition, Biocon has established two subsidiaries: Syngene (1994) to provide development support services for discovery research and Clinigene (2000) to cater to services in clinical development.
A leading US trade publication, ‘Med Ad News’, in its 2007/08 listings has ranked Biocon 20th amongst the leading biotechnology companies in the world and the seventh largest Biotech employer in the world. Biocon also received the 2009 Bio Singapore Asia Pacific Biotechnology Award for Best Listed Company.
Dr. Preetha Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited
Inspired and guided by her father, Dr. Prathap C. Reddy, the pioneer of corporatized healthcare in India, Preetha had formally joined Apollo Hospitals as Joint Managing Director in 1989 and five years later, she became the Managing Director of the Group. A forerunner of integrated healthcare in Asia and globally, Apollo Hospitals’ has been in a position of strength at every touchpoint of the healthcare delivery chain. The group’s presence includes quaternary and tertiary care hospitals in urban and semi-urban India, primary care & diagnostic family clinics, pharmacies, health education and research endeavours, global clinical trials, wellness, healthcare consulting, business process operations and healthcare technology services. Since inception in 1983, Apollo Hospitals has been honoured with the trust of over 30 million patients.Preetha Reddy steers the operations of the Apollo Hospitals group and works closely with the clinicians to help introduce contemporary protocols and continually raise the bar for clinical outcomes. She also oversees the planning, designing and funding of new projects, with a view to directing the Group towards optimum utilization of resources and funds. Keenly focused on quality, she institutionalized strict adherence to pre-determined standards in every area of operations of the Group’s hospitals.
With an aim to harness the growing mobile penetration in India, Preetha had initiated partnerships with telecom providers and Apollo Hospitals pioneered m-health solutions in India. These path breaking mobile healthcare partnerships are set to transform the delivery of healthcare across India and will accelerate Apollo Hospitals’ vision of touching a billion lives.
She works with industry bodies and the Government of India to advance policy decisions on important healthcare issues. In 2009, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh invited her to join the Indo-U.S. and Indo-Malaysia CEOs Forum, think-tanks created to strengthen bilateral cooperation and trade.
Dr Preetha Reddy was ranked in the International list of “50 Most Powerful Women in Business”, by Fortune in 2010 and 2011, and also in ‘The Most Powerful Women in Business’ List compiled by Fortune India – 2011. She has been a regular in the ‘Business Today’s’ list of powerful business women since 2006.
Preetha was a Founding Member of the National Quality Council, an organization which had provided the guidelines on minimum quality standards to Indian Hospitals. In addition to being an Executive Member on the Board of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, she is a Member of the Wipro Business Leadership Council and a Governing Board Member of XLRI Jamshedpur.
Preetha Reddy was a recipient of a LifeTime Achievement Award for distinguished service in the field of Social Science from the Loyola Forum for Historical Research.
Dr. Preetha has been at the forefront of working for the less fortunate and an inspiring example is SACHi (Save a Child’s Heart Initiative) – an endeavour to treat underprivileged children with congenital heart diseases. Under the auspices of SACHi, over 5000 cardiac surgeries have been performed and over 50,000 underprivileged children have been screened for cardiac ailments. She has also played a vital catalyst in facilitating prompt medical emergency response to numerous calamities. Dr Preetha Reddy is the pioneer and chief architect of the TLC mantra, a pillar of the Apollo way.
Dr. Preetha Reddy holds a B.Sc from Stella Maris College Chennai, and a Masters in Public Administration from Madras University. She received formal training in fine-arts at Kalakshetra, Chennai, and this helped her further imbibe traditional Indian art and culture. Preetha Reddy was conferred the Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai, in recognition of her outstanding work in the field of healthcare. Dr. Preetha is married and has two sons.
Dr. Swati A Piramal, vice chairperson, pIRAMAL ENTERPRISES
Dr. Swati Piramal is one of India’s leading scientists and industrialists, and is involved in healthcare. Her contributions in innovations in new medicines and public health services have touched thousands of lives. Born on March 28th 1956, Dr.Piramal earned her medical degree, an M.B.B.S from Mumbai University in 1980. Dr. Swati Piramal is an alumnus of the Harvard School of Public Health. Since 1992 when she received her Masters Degree in Public Health, she has contributed to the public health of people around the world.Dr. Piramal leads a team of scientists in cancer, diabetes, inflammation and infectious disease research, with a portfolio of over 200 international patents, and 14 new drugs. Piramal Enterprises is a multinational, with global manufacturing operations and supplies medicines to over a 100 countries. In the last, nearly two decades, she has worked in the prevention of chronic diseases like diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. She is a founder of the Gopikrishna Piramal Hospital in Mumbai, and has launched public health campaigns against chronic disease, osteoporosis, malaria, TB, epilepsy and polio. The Sports-medicine Centre at the Hospital was the first of its kind, and worked for the arthritis treatment of disabled children, the elderly, and sports injuries. She started Ostop India, a prevention of Osteoporosis programme, and a field detection centre for detection of Diabetes, and Epilepsy, and a nationwide campaign for the prevention of chronic disease in India.
As Director of the Piramal Foundation which is engaged in inter-disciplinary and field based education, she helps promote health in rural India with HMRI – a mobile health service, women’s empowerment projects, and supporting community education that creates young leaders. She is a Director of Sarvajal foundation for clean water. Through this, she has made an immense contribution for supporting women in leadership roles. The first woman President of India’s Apex Chamber of Commerce, ASSOCHAM, in 90 years, she helped influence important public policies and governance. Her impact on public policy related to healthcare has led to major policy changes that help reduce the burden of disease.
She currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of both the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Business School. She has Board Positions in healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and service companies. She serves on the Boards of Indian and International Academic institutions such as IIT Bombay, and Harvard University. She has also served on the advisory board of UPenn. She also serves on government public policy committees for trade, planning, environment, arts, women’s entrepreneurship, national integration, and regional development. She was the Commencement Speaker at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1992.
On April 2012, Dr. Piramal received the Padma Shri, at the hands of the President of India. In May 2012, Dr. Swati Piramal was elected a Member of the Harvard Board of Overseers. Dr. Swati has also received the Alumni Merit Award, the highest award bestowed on Alumni from Harvard in September 2012 and the Lotus Award at New York, from Children’s Hope India, for Leadership and Philanthropy in October 2012. Dr Piramal has been the recipient of one of France’s highest honours -“Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Merite” (Knight of the Order of Merit) in 2006, for medicine and trade. She received the Rajiv Gandhi Award for Outstanding Woman Achiever, from the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, in 2007.
Furthermore, on National Technology Day – she was awarded the Distinguished Scientist Oration 2008.
Vinita Gupta, CEO, Lupin Pharmaceuticals
A graduate in pharmacy from the University of Mumbai and MBA from J L Kellog Graduate School of Management, Mrs. Vinita Gupta has been instrumental in Lupin’s forays into the Advanced Markets and heads the Advanced Market business of the company in the markets of USA and Europe. Under her leadership, Lupin has emerged as a global generic player, especially in the US market in addition to becoming a strong player in the pediatric branded market. She is also a Chief Executive Officer Lupin Limitedon the Board of Lupin Ltd.
These women are calling the shots not only in Indian pharma and healthcare space, but they are also setting benchmarks for leadership globally. We hope to see many more rising stars in this sector in the years to come.
