Kiran Mazumdar Shaw on Empowering an Inclusive Economy
Founder, Executive Chairperson, and Managing Director at Biocon Biologics
Writer: Miral Zafar
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw needs no introduction. We all know what a force to reckon with she is. She single-handedly founded Biocon in 1978 and built it into a globally recognized name at a time when the biotech industry was not welcoming towards female entrepreneurs.
Today, Biocon delivers on the promise of making medicines accessible and affordable to millions of patients worldwide. In her opening statement, she says, “I always enjoy talking to young people because I think it is extremely important for all of you to believe that there is a huge opportunity for you to have a very purposeful life ahead.”
Q1. From the time you donned the entrepreneur hat, what are some of the changes in diversity and inclusion you have seen and further expect to see?
From a young age, my purpose in life was to be gainfully employed and economically independent. I think all women can relate in wanting to prove to ourselves that we can be financially independent. Whether it be Sudha Murthy or myself, many other women who tried to pursue a professional career within the industry found it arduous as we were a rare breed.
At 25 years old, I had no business experience. Banks did not want to lend to me because I could not provide them collateral. Typically, women did not own property nor have huge amounts in the bank that could act as collateral. My father was my greatest supporter, but I did not want him to stand a guarantee for me. There was a huge sense of pride in me, but there was also a very deep sense of purpose.
There is a perception hurdle among venture funds, which men generally run, that women cannot be risk-takers, aggressive or ambitious when running a business.
An entrepreneur is an entrepreneur. We all want to succeed. We are all risk-takers. Whether it is a man or a woman, everyone encounters problems, challenges, and risks while building their company. So, there should not be any discrimination between genders. Whilst it is true that women have to try that much harder, I think it’s getting much easier now because you are seeing a lot more women in the tech world at least.
I think women should stop worrying about whether entrepreneurship is tough or not. Just go for it with a sense of driving purpose, self-belief, and an ambition to succeed.
Q2. What do you think the government can do to ease policy and procedures for doing business especially in terms of women?
Policies should focus on young people because it is not easy to run a company, and it does not matter whether you are a young woman or a man who is starting a company.
The government needs to start with improving ‘ease of doing business’ in the country.
Next, the government needs to make it easier for start-ups to access capital. Right now, they are beholden to either angel investors or debt financing to fund their growth. That is not the ideal way to go about funding new ventures. I had to face huge funding challenges when I was trying to grow my fledgling company in the early 1980s. Biocon had to rely on debt financing because there was no venture funding at that time. In those days, I had to pay as high as 16 to 18 percent interest on bank loans!
While access to capital is crucial for companies to scale up, current rules make it very difficult for them to do so. Any company that wants to list on the Indian stock exchanges has to have revenues, income, and some profit. This is not a logical demand, as start-ups typically do not turn profitable within the first few years. It is really about an idea that has the potential of becoming a big business.
An alternative suggestion to evaluate whether a company should get to access capital markets is by checking if they have registered venture funds as investors, which would have done their due diligence before putting in money. Secondly, an early-stage investor should be exempted from paying taxes for a few years. Such a tax-free mechanism for start-ups will allow them to reinvest in the business. A mechanism that allows start-ups to remain tax-exempt for a few years as long as they reinvest their profits into the business can prove beneficial. Once a start-up stops investing back in the business, the tax exemption will go. That could be an attractive way for people to build up nascent businesses. I reinvested every bit of profit back into building the business in the early days of Biocon.
Even though we hear about many technology unicorns, each one with billions of dollars in valuation, I do not think many of them have been listed on the Indian stock exchanges. This is why we should be supporting good policies so that the entrepreneurs of this country, both women and men, can do much better.
Q3. Can you tell us your perspective on the importance of gender diversity for better business growth in our nation?
Every educated person in this country counts. I always tell women to focus on their education and find gainful employment.
My mother, who turned 90 this year, is a fantastic entrepreneur even at this age. She single-handedly runs her laundry and dry-cleaning business. She is proud of the fact that she does not have to depend on any of her kids. In fact, for every one of our birthdays, she gives us a gift from her earnings.
It is crucial for all of us, especially women, to be economically independent and gainfully employed. I think the sense of purpose you get in life; you cannot get by just being a housewife. Yes, my mother has also been a very proud housewife. I am proud of my mother as she raised me and brought me up so well, but I am much prouder of her today because of what she does. I think all children are always proud of their working moms. All the men must understand that.
Q4. What qualities should budding entrepreneurs, especially women, learn or develop to be taken seriously and succeed in business today?
Today every listed company is invariably forced to think about diversity and inclusion. Women must understand that they have a great opportunity to be selected for high-profile jobs and build successful careers.
When I started Biocon in 1978, one of my driving missions was that I wanted it to have a good gender balance. I wanted to create a company that can give opportunities to women scientists. At that time, women held 60% of leadership roles in the company. I want today’s young generation to have the same level of confidence and self-belief that we had in my generation.
To ensure women are given a fair chance when competing against men, a woman should also be evaluated on her potential and not just experience, while a man should only be evaluated for experience and performance. At the selection level, hiring managers must understand women have not had the same privileges as men and do not have the same legacy of work experience as men, hence evaluation criteria for women have to be different from men.
Today, Biocon employs a large number of women scientists in R&D, Quality, etc and we continue to improve gender diversity in other functions, but we struggle to increase the number of women employed in some of the other areas like production. At present, 17% of our total workforce are women and we are making additional efforts to improve diversity ratios. Our business leaders ensure that women are well-represented in every team. We also have a strong merit-based culture and we practice ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’ irrespective of the gender of the employee. To help a large number of women in middle management transition to senior leadership roles we have introduced targeted development programs. Our endeavor is to build a cadre of empathetic women leaders who will excel in managing the future course of the business. Additionally, we have extended maternity leave and introduced part-time opportunities for women returning to work after a career break as part of our efforts to improve gender diversity.
Q5. As a role model to many, can you share your recipe for success and how design thinking has played a role in it?
I have always admired forthrightness, compassion, and fairness in people. I simultaneously try to embody those traits myself. I am approachable, and I would not ever be comfortable cheating anyone or doing something unfair. That does not mean that I am a pushover or am weak-minded.
If you are narrow-minded in looking at a problem from just one aspect or perspective, you will not be able to think of innovative solutions. It is essential to look at a problem as a puzzle and think of more than one way to solve it; that is when you will get your mind thinking about problem-solving in a way that you never thought possible.
When I started Biocon, I began as a fermentation-based company developing enzymes. In those early days, I visited a coffee plantation where they explained the microbiology of coffee processing to me. Green coffee beans were fermented with selected microorganisms to improve the flavor and aroma of the coffee, but the process they were using took them 36–40 hours.
Intrigued by this, I developed an enzyme process for them that allowed the processing to be done in two hours and resulted in a superior product.
You need lateral design thinking to find new opportunities by leveraging your current technologies or processes.
Q6. Biocon is an example of democratizing health care. What is it that countries like India can do to contribute to this region and make it happen?
India is already doing it. Look at the vaccines industry. All of us in India operate in an ecosystem that is about economies of scale, unlike the western model. The western model is all about high value, low volume, and reimbursement from government healthcare systems. In India, we follow a model of high volume, low value, which can make products like vaccines and lifesaving medicines affordable enough for the common man.
This model is about leveraging your capability base and your cost base to deliver on the affordability index that you are looking at. Our motto is “highest quality at the lowest cost” and that is how we want to make a global impact.
At Biocon, we want to be the lowest-cost insulin producer in the world. We are building our business in a way that lets us use technologies to innovate and benefit millions of people with diabetes globally by giving them access to high-quality insulin through a low-cost delivery model. Innovation begins from what we call cell line development. Getting a high-yielding cell is extremely important because that lowers cost. And then it is about your business model.
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