The internet and social media is inundated with news about tinsel town beauties, about what they wear and how they create fashion trends. Hardly ever do we come across similar articles about Indian women who are charting their own history in a wide variety of fields, both domestically and globally. Demure Drapes is pleased to kick-off a new series on these gutsy ladies AND leaders who embody true Sari Power. Starting today, we will try and feature a new example each day and provide a brief glimpse of their achievements. Please feel free to share more such examples that you might have come across, so that we can all learn and seek inspiration from them. Cheers to these ladies and hoping for “bahut sari power” to many, many more of them…….
#Sari~Power 17th August...
Ever wonder how to be influential and reach the top of the world? Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is an Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive and the current Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, She has consistently ranked among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2014, she was ranked 13 in the list of Forbes World's 100 most powerful women.
Her story (excerpts from:http://smarttechiejournal.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/69/)
goes as follows an Indian girl who came from conservative Chennai to pursue higher studies in the US with little money and no safety net. A determined girl, who while studying in Connecticut, worked as a receptionist from midnight to sunrise TO EARN MONEY and struggled to put together US$50 to buy herself a western outfit for her first job interview out of Yale, where she had just completed her masters. Incidentally the trousers reached down only till her ankles. Rejected at the interview, she turned to her professor at the school who asked her what she would wear if she were to be in India. To her reply that it would be a sari, the professor advised her to “be yourself” and stick to what she was comfortable with. She wore a sari for her next interview. She got the job and has followed this philosophy for the rest of her career. She’s been herself, never tried to change her basic beliefs, derived strength from her traditions and believed in who she is. after meal every day her mother would ask Indra and her sister what would they like to become when they grew up. They would come up with different ideas and their mother would reward the best idea each day. It forced Indra to think and dream for herself. It was this dream that led her to be a part of the 11th batch of IIM Kolkata. After two years of work with Johnson & Johnson and Mettur Beardsell in India, it was this fiery urge that took her to America in 1978, when she left India with barely any money to pursue a MANAGEMENT DEGREE from the prestigious Yale Graduate School of Management.
And then there was no looking back for this dynamic lady in a sari..
18th August: #Sari~Power
Sari signifies the poise and elegance of a woman, and when it is a lady as dignified as Anu Aga, the sari tells a different sari~power story..
To know tragedy and to live it is two different things but when Anu Aga was struck by three tragic episodes in a row, she became a woman who would never be afraid again of life or death. And who INVESTED her energy and resources in cultivating human capital within her company and outside it.
Anu Aga’s LIFE STORY of grace under fire and her success as a born again businesswoman and former chairperson of Thermax India are both intertwined. To narrate one without touching upon the other would not be possible. .
Anu was born on August 3, 1942 in an upper middle-class Parsi family in Mumbai. A degree in Economics, post graduation in medical and psychiatric SOCIAL WORK and a Fulbright scholarship later, she married a bright Harvard scholar Rohinton Aga, raised a family and had just married off her daughter when tragedy struck.
In 1996, Rohinton passed away suddenly after a heart attack and nothing had really prepared Anu to her fill his shoes or take his place as a chairperson at Thermax. Thermax, a modest engineering company initiated by her father A S Bathena three decades ago had been managed with exemplary excellence by Rohinton and Anu had been content handling HUMAN RESOURCES but now she was expected to run the company and win back the fast depleting trust of the shareholders.
But more personal tragedy was in store. Her mother-in-law passed away and then her 25-year-old son Kurush died in a road accident. Three debilitating deaths in the family would be enough to knock the air out of any woman’s sails, but Anu took over the reins at Thermax and grew it to new heights.
She had figured among the eight richest Indian women, and in 2007 was part of 40 Richest Indians by net worth according to Forbesmagazine. She was awarded with the Mumbai Women of the Decade Achievers Award by ASSOCHAM Ladies League, the all ladies wing of ASSOCHAM.
After retiring from Thermax, she took to social work, and in 2010 she was awarded thePadma Shri for Social Work by the Government of India. She is currently Chairperson of Teach For India. She was nominated to Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Indian Parliament on 26 April 2012, by President Pratibha Patil.
(excerpts from accenture's microsite)
#Sari~Power 17th August...
Ever wonder how to be influential and reach the top of the world? Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is an Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive and the current Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, She has consistently ranked among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2014, she was ranked 13 in the list of Forbes World's 100 most powerful women.
Her story (excerpts from:http://smarttechiejournal.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/69/)
goes as follows an Indian girl who came from conservative Chennai to pursue higher studies in the US with little money and no safety net. A determined girl, who while studying in Connecticut, worked as a receptionist from midnight to sunrise TO EARN MONEY and struggled to put together US$50 to buy herself a western outfit for her first job interview out of Yale, where she had just completed her masters. Incidentally the trousers reached down only till her ankles. Rejected at the interview, she turned to her professor at the school who asked her what she would wear if she were to be in India. To her reply that it would be a sari, the professor advised her to “be yourself” and stick to what she was comfortable with. She wore a sari for her next interview. She got the job and has followed this philosophy for the rest of her career. She’s been herself, never tried to change her basic beliefs, derived strength from her traditions and believed in who she is. after meal every day her mother would ask Indra and her sister what would they like to become when they grew up. They would come up with different ideas and their mother would reward the best idea each day. It forced Indra to think and dream for herself. It was this dream that led her to be a part of the 11th batch of IIM Kolkata. After two years of work with Johnson & Johnson and Mettur Beardsell in India, it was this fiery urge that took her to America in 1978, when she left India with barely any money to pursue a MANAGEMENT DEGREE from the prestigious Yale Graduate School of Management.
And then there was no looking back for this dynamic lady in a sari..
18th August: #Sari~Power
Sari signifies the poise and elegance of a woman, and when it is a lady as dignified as Anu Aga, the sari tells a different sari~power story..
To know tragedy and to live it is two different things but when Anu Aga was struck by three tragic episodes in a row, she became a woman who would never be afraid again of life or death. And who INVESTED her energy and resources in cultivating human capital within her company and outside it.
Anu Aga’s LIFE STORY of grace under fire and her success as a born again businesswoman and former chairperson of Thermax India are both intertwined. To narrate one without touching upon the other would not be possible. .
Anu was born on August 3, 1942 in an upper middle-class Parsi family in Mumbai. A degree in Economics, post graduation in medical and psychiatric SOCIAL WORK and a Fulbright scholarship later, she married a bright Harvard scholar Rohinton Aga, raised a family and had just married off her daughter when tragedy struck.
In 1996, Rohinton passed away suddenly after a heart attack and nothing had really prepared Anu to her fill his shoes or take his place as a chairperson at Thermax. Thermax, a modest engineering company initiated by her father A S Bathena three decades ago had been managed with exemplary excellence by Rohinton and Anu had been content handling HUMAN RESOURCES but now she was expected to run the company and win back the fast depleting trust of the shareholders.
But more personal tragedy was in store. Her mother-in-law passed away and then her 25-year-old son Kurush died in a road accident. Three debilitating deaths in the family would be enough to knock the air out of any woman’s sails, but Anu took over the reins at Thermax and grew it to new heights.
She had figured among the eight richest Indian women, and in 2007 was part of 40 Richest Indians by net worth according to Forbesmagazine. She was awarded with the Mumbai Women of the Decade Achievers Award by ASSOCHAM Ladies League, the all ladies wing of ASSOCHAM.
After retiring from Thermax, she took to social work, and in 2010 she was awarded thePadma Shri for Social Work by the Government of India. She is currently Chairperson of Teach For India. She was nominated to Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Indian Parliament on 26 April 2012, by President Pratibha Patil.
(excerpts from accenture's microsite)
