Beyond Wealth: What All GSK Velu Wants His Daughter Kavya to Inherit

GSK: I never had it in the earlier part of my life. So obviously, we need something to survive. But beyond a certain extent, what do you do with money? Personal wealth is not something you go after. Wealth comes if you do something meaningful in business.  

What difference do we make in society and how much we are able to innovate. We never had an aspiration to make our group this big or that big. We have a simple aspiration. Every year you have to do better than last year. 

There are more than 40,000 people working in our group and these families are dependent on us. We have to be very responsible and are accountable to all of them in some form or the other. 

GSK: Health care was not available in my village. Even for basic care, we had to walk many kilometres or ride a cycle to reach a facility. When I had a snake bite, it took me a long time to reach a hospital. Obviously, health care access and affordability had to improve. 

Initially, I wanted to become a doctor. Around that time, entrance exams were introduced, so I could not get into medicine. Instead, I went to BITS [Birla Institute of Technology and Science] Pilani to study pharmacy, then specialised in biomedical engineering. From there, I got an internship at the Cancer Institute under Professor Shanta (V Shanta). She was my mentor and first guide. 

That is where we understood that many people, not only in India but across the world, are still waiting for basic care. How do you reduce that gap? We need to make the most advanced technology accessible and affordable to all, whether through Trivitron as a medtech company, Neuberg as a diagnostic company, MaxiVision as an eye care company or Kauvery as a super-speciality hospital.  

We also collaborate with Apollo for dialysis and dental care. All of this follows a common philosophy. How do we improve access and affordability for the largest section of the population?

Kavya: I’ve always seen my dad as very strong-willed; he knows what he wants and gets things done. He is also very good at multitasking. 

I work full time at Neuberg, which takes up a lot of my time. Thinking about how he manages 15 companies, has his hands in everything, knows what’s going on, yet stays a bit detached, it’s very impressive. There’s a lot to learn from his work ethic. 

His experiences shape his vision and mine shape mine. I grew up privileged; it never felt like we lacked anything. I look at things more in terms of sustaining that legacy and taking a more responsible approach. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with what he has built.

Kavya: I don’t feel like I have to replicate anything. I feel very connected to the business, a level of connection I wouldn’t have if I weren’t part of the family. That is a strong value I bring.

It’s difficult to compare their journey with ours. What matters is having a similar approach. Our values are aligned, and I understand the vision.

GSK: When I exited Metropolis [as a promoter], I wanted to return to diagnostics. We were already doing work in eye care, dental and dialysis. I used some of that capital to invest in these ventures. In our eye hospitals and Trivitron, we bought back PE [private equity] stakes, making Trivitron a 100% family-owned business.

By then, we had worked with PE five times. I found the investment world fascinating; it is a detached way of doing business, without emotional attachment. That is how an investor operates. An operator, on the other hand, is deeply involved, like we are in our businesses.

We decided to differentiate our approach. We created two investment paths. One was to back individuals—seeding and supporting them through a typical PE venture. That is how Stakeboat Capital was created.

The second was in sectors like health care, where we have deeper understanding. Even as investors, we can add strategic value, support businesses and create synergies across ventures. That is how we made our first investment in Kauvery in 2015, directly from the family office.

We then launched our first PE fund of ₹150cr, with ₹100cr from me and ₹50cr from others. It performed very well. We are now in our second fund of nearly ₹1,000cr, where we are contributing ₹150cr and ₹850cr has been raised from institutional investors.

GSK: Either we go through the PE route or through our own operating companies. Start-ups are most of our investments. We have very little investment in real estate and share markets. Because these things are very speculative. On these speculative investments, as much money you can make, that much you can lose too. So, it is better to be certain than to leave the entire result to destiny.

We have invested in Health Basix [a digital health-care platform] and some are cross-border businesses. They are all in the early stage. We have invested in maybe 6-7 companies.

Some of them are in women's health care, some in pet care and some in paediatric health care. In start-ups, you need to be patient. We started investing in these companies over the past 5-6 years.

GSK: We have to get excited about the story. I follow the concept of 'never been done before’. If you are doing something that has already been done, the chances of success are limited. When we are ready to make a global impact, that is what becomes sustainable in the long term.

In some service businesses, the approach is very specific. Many start in India as pilots but think long term. Some are already looking beyond India to the UK and the US.

GSK: Everybody needs independence. As investment professionals, if you leave them independent, they will run. Stakeboat is a classic example. I'm not on the investment committee. I don't attend any meetings. Once in a while, they'll come and give me updates.  

When we started Stakeboat, Chandra [Chandrasekar Kandasamy] was the managing partner and still is today. The founding team is still there. Ganesan [Athmanathan Ganesan, founder and partner] has been there with me for 30 years.

Kavya: I still have a lot to learn. My dad is clear about succession and has a strong vision for what he wants to do. It’s just me and my sister—no one else in the family is part of the business. We are a small, close-knit family. 

Seeing our dad build this has made us feel deeply connected to it. We trust him to guide us and align our roles with our personalities and skill sets. 

In terms of the family office, I feel particularly passionate about health-care start-ups, especially preventive health. That is something I want to focus on in the future. And of course, technology. It can go hand-in-hand with health care, helping create solutions that are easy for consumers to use and integrate into their daily lives.

GSK: We should be ready by the next calendar year. We are looking at listing in the first half of the year.

GSK: Medtech, overall, as an ecosystem. Even today, we are 80% import-dependent, whereas in pharma, we have become largely self-reliant. India still has a long way to go in medical technology. There is huge potential over the next 10 years across every facet of it. 

Medtech is as big as pharma and has multiple subsets. That’s where Trivitron operates. At the same time, newer trends like AI [artificial intelligence] are emerging. We’ve created a separate company, Trivitron Digital.ai, which focuses on the convergence of IT [information technology], health care and AI. AI is going to become an integral part of health care. Every facet will see some level of AI intervention. I believe India has a significant role to play here.

Kavya: It’s important to remember that health care still requires human intervention. It involves a lot of interpretation. Where AI plays a role is in handling and organising large volumes of data, which would otherwise take a lot of time, even with automation. That’s where it can add real intelligence. 

That said, there still needs to be a layer of human intervention to personalise care. In India especially, people value the human touch. There’s a need for reassurance and empathy, so health care cannot be entirely driven by automation. 

What excites me is figuring out how to use AI as a tool to deliver better services, while still retaining our core values. It’s about supporting doctors and ensuring that we provide the most accurate and comprehensive outcomes. That’s what will truly make a difference in people’s lives.

GSK: Work hard. That's the only advice. If you have passion, positivity, commitment and work hard, everything will follow. These are the things within your control. You need to do whatever you do passionately, and you should have commitment and positivity.  

Kavya: There was never a conversation where he sat me down and said I would be getting into work. Initially, I thought there would be some kind of introduction when I started at Neuberg. I had just moved back from New York one day and went to work the next day because I didn’t want to sit at home. 

I remember going there and knowing nobody. It was a monthly review meeting, eight hours long and everyone was speaking in abbreviations. My dad gave me no introduction; he didn’t even acknowledge I was there. He just said, 'We’ve set up a room for you. You can see what you want to do. Just listen.' 

In the first week, I would sit there for hours, wondering what to do or who to talk to. Today, I feel like I don’t have enough hours in the day. I tell my mom I’ll come home early, but I end up getting back around 8:30. I really enjoy it, and it all happened quickly. 

One thing my dad always told me that stayed with me is that you have to fight from the front lines, you can’t be a backseat driver. You have to be willing to participate.

Kavya: In any industry, being a woman brings a different experience. A year ago, I tended to sugarcoat things, it would take me longer to make a point because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Today, I’m more direct, because no one has time to waste. Even then, I would feel jittery or a bit shaken. 

I was speaking to a friend about this, and she said it may be a feeling many women share. It could fade over time, but we are often more empathetic. 

It’s not just about having a seat at the table, it’s about being heard. You can have women on the board, but if their opinions are not taken seriously, it doesn’t matter. That is where the real difference lies.