MOBIUS GRID

She was merely 13 and he 14. In their hearts, they knew they were meant to be, though they would not proclaim it. They would pretend to play cricket when the sun had long set, just to be with each other. They would play till 7 or 8 pm, though they would not see where the ball was being thrown. He was the handsome boy next door and she the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood. It was around 1969 when they first ran into each other and simply fell in love. Forty-eight years later, their love story is still being written. Zia and Jaydev Mody — reckoned as a power couple in the corporate world — have been each other’s strongest pillars ever since and their love hasn’t faded a bit. Zia, as we know her today, is one of the country’s finest legal brains, an authority on corporate law, and Jaydev, a business tycoon who runs a casino empire. “We just fell in love and couldn’t stand to be apart,” recalls Zia of the days when the two, in their early teens, had got acquainted in the Mumbai locality where they lived. It was a case of opposites attract, she reckons. “He was terribly handsome, intelligent, very impulsive, intense and very different from my own character, which was cautious, conservative and slightly nervous about things unknown.” Her good looks apart, it was Zia’s insatiable drive to excel at everything that fascinated Jaydev at age 14 and continues to even today. “As a child, she was always determined to be the best in whatever she did — whether it was topping the class or riding as a jockey at the gymkhana.” Even at 60, he says, she is still determined to be the best and doesn’t settle for any less. Among the memories Zia treasures the most is when Jaydev would come to the racecourse early in the morning and ride horses, just to be with her. They would ride every morning until 6.30 before she would go to school. Another, she recalls, is that of Jaydev writing her love letters in his scrawly handwriting — there was no internet or fax in those days — when he was off to Europe for many weeks or when she was travelling. Zia’s inspiration to study law and become a lawyer, of course, came from her father Soli Sorabjee, one of India’s most distinguished jurists and former attorney general. “I never wanted to be anything other than a lawyer. It was certainly my father who provided the inspiration. He was an obvious role model, which led my career choice being an easy decision.” She recalls how her father would often be at the dinner table making calls to his solicitors, talking about legal issues, and discussing with colleagues what the judges said in courts. “It always sounded challenging and exciting,” she says. Talking about her father’s nurturing, Zia recounts some of the key learnings from him as hard work, honesty and the

India’s greatest showman – Subhash Ghai and his daughter Meghna Ghai Puri speak to us about jointly running the film school – Whistling Woods International, the unique father-daughter bond, the Indian movie industry and how the senior Ghai still breathes films, like no other… Even though it has been 40 years since Subhash Ghai stepped into the big, competitive and fabulous realm of Hindi films, the memory of his tinsel-town blockbusters is still very fresh in our minds. Whether it was the rebirth theme in Karz, the serious goofiness of Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah under the strict tutelage of the legendary Dilip Kumar in Karma, the budding romance between Mahima Chaudhary and Shah Rukh Khan in Pardes or the undying love portrayed by Akshaye Khanna in the unforgettable Aishwarya Rai-starrer Taal – Ghai’s movies were a mix of everything that an audience ever wanted. There was a solid central theme, strong characters with distinct personalities, music that continues to occupy air space on radio stations even now and lots of adventure, fun and life. The reason Ghai was able to give us such cinematic gems is because he started honing his skills to become a complete filmmaker from an early age. “I was always more attracted to dance, drama, and music than textbooks. I never missed a chance to participate in extra-curricular activities in school. Once, I even bunked a class with friends to watch Ten Commandments,” he says. His mother, a teacher also greatly contributed in making him the man he is. She had a habit of making him read and summarising moral stories from The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. She introduced him to mythologies that fascinated him as a child. He used to love watching the ever-popular drama Ramlila at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. During his days at Vaish College, Rohtak, he optimised every opportunity to broaden his horizons as a playwright, actor and what not. He started singing and acting and was crowned the undisputed “hero of Punjab University!” By doing so, Ghai was trying to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, Ghai was regaling everybody with his histrionics and zest for drama. On the other, he was silently putting all his energy into creativity, turning every failure to his advantage. He even received a gold medal in dramatics at college. Armed with such a passion for drama, Ghai like the happy, heroic protagonists of his movies used any hardships that came his way to create value via the medium of acting, humour and song. His parents decided to separate when he was 12. But there’s not an iota of self-pity about the incident in him. Speaking about it, Ghai says, while growing up, he got a chance to experience a unique childhood and spent time with different families with a different set of values, views about life, rules, and regulations. “If I grew up in one family, I would have been a reflection of my parents! However, my whole upbringing

Hidesign CEO Dilip Kapur traces the journey of his iconic brand that has risen from very humble beginnings. It was the late 1970s when Puducherry-born, Sri Aurobindo Ashram-schooled Dilip Kapur came back to his hometown after studying at Phillips Academy, Andover and Princeton. His return was well-timed. On February 28th, 1968, some 5,000 people from 124 nations and 23 Indian states congregated to inaugurate the future township of Auroville in a solemn ceremony. “We believed Auroville would create a model to change the world. There were people, rebellious and innovative, from all over the world. Puducherry itself was a quiet town, culturally led by Auroville and the Ashram,” says Kapur. In the last 49 years, this quaint little town on the Southern coast of India has certainly made a mark for itself in terms of heritage, travel and hide! Kapur has given Puducherry its most famous shopping address in the form of his internationally-acclaimed luxury brand – Hidesign, which has a current turnover of ₹160-170 crores. Meant for those who want to indulge in genuine leather goods that are sturdy, stylish and almost ageless, Hidesign was established in 1978 with a two-person artisan workshop once Kapur moved to Auroville from the States after completing his PhD. Thereafter, he started experimenting with leather as a hobby. “Friends and friends of friends started buying and selling them in Australia and the US. One day, I received a large order and realized I needed a workshop.” Interestingly, up until then, he had never thought of starting a leather business. But during his stay in the US, to sustain himself during the summer, he applied for a job at a Denver-based leather shop called Poor Richard’s. This nine-month stint resurrected his love for leather that was “somehow in his blood” because of his father whose leather shoe factory burnt down during the Partition. “I had never seen him work with leather. But I loved working with leather at Denver, learning how to hand dye leather, cut it and assemble bags,” says Kapur. Today, Hidesign products are made in three factories in Pondicherry, Ranipet Baddi, and Sikkim. Known for its craftsmanship and innovative design, in India, Hidesign has 81 exclusive stores; it is also present in 160 shop-in-shops and major e-commerce platforms. Internationally, their distribution and franchise stores are spread across 23 countries that include Russia, Sri Lanka, Prague and Kenya; Indonesia and Dubai are in the offing. Since leather is the star of Kapur’s show, he goes to great lengths to procure it from tanneries all over the world like Brazil, the highlands of East Africa, Europe, and New Zealand. From the time, he started working wholeheartedly with leather his curiosity has led him to explore the traditions of vegetable tanning in south India, probably the greatest centre in the world of vegetable tanning traditions. No wonder, he prefers, “Kerala as the climate and educated farmers ensure healthy animals,” and a good quality hide. Apart from the leather, Kapur is equally stringent about the

Before he became the most illustrious man in the Indian advertising industry, Piyush Pandey was busy, playing cricket and tasting tea for TM & MC. The latter activity was part of a friendship pact between him and his dear friend, the cricketer and commentator Arun Lal. “We decided that whenever we work, we will be together no matter where it is. That’s how I joined him as a tea taster in Kolkata,” shares Pandey, who eventually said bye to chai, after a two-year stint. He also gave up cricket after realising that he “wasn’t good enough to play beyond Ranji Trophy.” But he still has deep affection for the gentleman’s game. “For the last 10 years, I have worked on the IPL, Mumbai Indians and World Cup campaigns. Today at my age, I may not be able to play it but cricket is in my blood!” After being bored of tea leaves and the bat-and-ball sport, Pandey entered advertising by chance and a little encouragement from his wingman Arun and his wife Reena. “They both observed that I was very good at writing one liners and asked me to try my hand at it. Since nothing was planned, I decided to give it a shot.” In 1982, Pandey was interviewed by then Ogilvy boss Ranjan Kapur. Since he couldn’t decide which department to put him in, he joined as an account executive. “I was doing well in client servicing. In 1982, with the advent of colour television, a lot of people couldn’t come to terms with writing for the masses. I used to write for clients who wanted ads in Hindi. My bosses Mani Iyer and Suresh Mullick got a whiff of it and put me in writing copy.” His transition to the creative side wasn’t as easy as he makes it sound. Since there was an existing team, the bosses couldn’t afford to bring him in as a senior resource without upsetting the apple cart. So, they created an absolutely new position for him. Pandey became copy chief, Indian languages, as here was an opportunity for him to write Indian content in the Indian context. He went on to write unforgettable tag lines like Chal Meri Luna, Dam Laga Ke Haisha and Mera Wala Cream and give brands like Luna, Fevicol, and Asian Paints a much-needed impetus. Welcome to the world of Piyush Pandey — India’s most decorated ad man; creator of the campaign of the century and writer extraordinaire. Most importantly, a man of humour and humility, and passion and perseverance! His ads are like him — steeped in simplicity. “An ad becomes great when it appeals to people and they approve of it. In the case of Cadbury, the brief was very simple — to enable older people to eat it openly without feeling shy. For Fevicol, it was making people have a role to play with glue and the carpenter. And with Luna, it was about bringing mobility to the Indian masses. Throughout the campaigns, I

Ananth Narayanan came to Myntra with little experience of fashion but he is well on his way to making the online retailer a force to reckon with. In 2015, when Flipkart hired Ananth Narayanan, then a 38-year-old director from McKinsey, to run its newly-acquired fashion retailer Myntra, the young CEO set up a herculean task for himself: To make Myntra India’s  first profitable large e-commerce company. At a time when the top e-commerce companies in India, be it Amazon, Flipkart, or Snapdeal were bleeding, such a proposition sounded quite far-fetched. Discounts to lure customers and keep sales volumes high were piling up losses for most e-commerce players. Myntra wasn’t an exception. A little over 2 years later, Narayanan’s mission, while not achieved yet, looks well on track. In August 2017, the company declared its private label business, called Myntra Fashion Brands (MFB), profitable. MFB makes for 23% of the company’s business. Myntra now expects to turn EBITDA pro table soon, perhaps in a month or two. “We are ahead of target in turning EBITDA positive and will announce that soon,” says Narayanan. How did Myntra’s young CEO manage to get his company on track? He certainly got his initial priorities right — to cut costs, streamline processes, and shift the focus on higher-margin businesses. Through careful inventory management, Narayanan was able to cut discounts and supply chain costs by a few percentage points. While discounts were slashed on popular products that customers were willing to pay full price or near full price, supply chain costs were brought down by increased use of technology and economies of scale. A big boost to profitability came from Narayanan’s drive to reinvigorate the private labels business. The company owns 13 in-house brands, or MFB, whose margins are higher than those of third-party brands. In the past, these brands contributed a decent 14% to the platform, but weren’t scaling up. Narayanan felt their potential was not fully tapped and there was room for growth. “One reason they weren’t growing was lack of importance. The moment you declare them important, people pay attention to them. Shining a light on MFB was one big reason it started growing. Second, we genuinely improved the products,” he says. MFB is today a profitable business and the company expects to grow it to about 30% of sales in the days to come. The strategies Narayan implemented at Myntra have been geared to the rapidly growing e-commerce market. “My initial objective was to build upon the strengths and offer greater value, which I knew would help us have a large set of repeat customers, along with a steady focus on acquiring new customers. I focused on improving unit economics, improving the NPS and bringing more brands, which has helped us on our journey to becoming the first profitable e-commerce company in India,” he says. How does Myntra position itself in the larger fashion space, a burgeoning market expected to grow manifold in the coming decade? “From a macro perspective, brands are

Indian Companies Have The Adequate Genetic Makeup For Being Innovative A Vaidheesh, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals’ vice president, South Asia and managing director, India, is a successful senior business leader with over 28 years of diverse experience in the healthcare and FMCG domains. He has a strong track record of leadership development and building leading brands/franchises across various categories and multi-cultural locations in the Asia-Paci c region. At GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals India, which contributes a third of the volume of GlaxoSmithKline’s global sales, Vaidheesh is leading the company for its next stage of growth. GSK India’s UK-based parent is investing £100 million in expanding the Indian arm’s manufacturing capability — it is setting up a green eld factory in Bangalore which will help it double its capacity to manufacture tablets and capsules from 12 billion to 24 billion a year. Says Vaidheesh, “It’s time for India to put together a strategic map to go beyond generic drugs manufacture and play a bigger role in drug discovery and innovation and move up the value chain.” In an interview with Amit Ranjan Rai, he discusses his plans for GSK and how innovation is likely to be the next growth driver for Indian pharma companies. From a Bachelor of Physics and Masters in Marketing Management to a top leadership position at a global pharmaceuticals company, how do you see this journey in your life? What have been the key moments shaping this journey? I have always looked at my future in a bundle of 3 years forward. I have ensured success in every leadership position that was presented to me. I never worried about the future. Werner Erhard significantly helped me change my view of the world. The early stage of my career played a vital role in building my future. Saibal Saha and Supratim Bose were my inspirational leaders from whom I learnt the technical aspect of running the business as well as being a caring human soul before being a leader in a corporation. I am grateful to the almighty for providing me with an opportunity to express myself and be of value to society. What has been your vision and mission for GSK Pharmaceuticals in India? What has been your strategy to achieve this vision? We will make a positive difference to patients and the community by being a preferred, affordable and trusted partner of choice for key stakeholders in preventive and therapeutic healthcare. We will achieve this as “one team”, upholding our GSK values to become the fastest-growing pharma multinational and the most admired company in the industry How do you see GSK CEO, Sir Andrew Whitty’s leadership in making GSK a better organisation and company – one which is transparent, responsible and has high ethical standards? Sir Andrew Whitty is unquestionably the best leader I have ever worked with. I really admired the way he handled a business crisis in the region and converted an adverse situation into a path-breaking new paradigm for the pharma industry. He really walked the talk

Our transformation has been fundamental to our turnaround from the brink of collapse Last fiscal year was a record year for Ashok Leyland in many ways. The commercial vehicles (CV) giant achieved its highest ever sales volumes and turnover, its highest ever market share and operating pro t as also its highest shareholder value. Its turnover grew by a good 39 per cent to Rs 18,822 crore, as against Rs 13,562 crore, a year ago. The sales volume grew by 34 per cent to peak at 1,40,457 units, and the net pro t rose by a remarkable 115 per cent to Rs 722 crore, as against a year ago. The company’s market share in medium and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCVs) reached an all-time high of 31.3 per cent. Just over two years ago, when the CV industry was grappling with one of its worst recessions, Ashok Leyland was faced with what managing director Vinod K Dasari calls “nearly existential challenges.” The industry demand between FY12 and FY14 had plunged by about 50 per cent. As a result, in FY14, Ashok Leyland’s sales plummeted by 22 per cent (over FY13) to a low of 89,337 units, the turnover dropped to Rs 9,943 crore and the net pro t was a mere Rs 29 crore. The scenario called for radical measures to reverse the fortunes. Says Dasari, “We used this as an opportunity to transform ourselves into an agile player.” The company restructured itself into six businesses, with each responsible for not just its market share but also its EBITDA and working capital. This, says Dasari, drove ef ciency and a greater focus on return on capital employed. Massive programmes were launched to cut costs and reduce working capital requirements. Importantly, the company brought its focus back on its core business of commercial vehicles, chalking out a clear plan to exit from non-core and non-performing businesses. “Our efforts in pruning costs while at the same time investing in new products and network have helped us transform the company. We are now poised to seize the opportunity the market presents in the immediate future,” says Dasari. In an interview with Amit Ranjan Rai, he talks about his transformation drive to turnaround Ashok Leyland and his plans to achieve its vision to be among the top 10 in global trucks and top 5 in global buses. Ashok Leyland has delivered solid performance in FY2015-16 with a 39 per cent growth in revenue. Your earnings have increased to a healthy 11.5 per cent of total revenue and are perhaps the highest ever. What have been the reasons behind this robust performance? What factors — in terms of both your strategy and demand — have contributed to the performance? Which segments have been the key revenue and profit drivers? The Indian commercial vehicle market had a period of continual growth from 1999 to 2008, when it got struck by two back-to-back recessions. The second one between 2012 and 2014 was one of the longest, deepest recessions