Grit and glory

It’s no longer surprising to see women in powerful positions in business. From finance and banking, where women made their initial splash, they are now in every field. Starting off with their natural areas of strength like design, beauty and fitness, now, you find women wanting to pursue their passion and have their own business set-up. From engineering, manufacturing and medical sciences to all kinds of online businesses – they are exploring every available opportunity. 

For instance, it would have been unthinkable a few years ago for a woman to lead a revolutionary two-wheeler company. But that’s what Coimbatore-based Hemalatha Annamalai is doing. Her company Ampere Motors is focused on manufacturing electric vehicles. She is obviously breaking the glass ceiling as neither is engineering perceived to be a women’s bastion nor is the two-wheeler industry easy to crack. Her audacious dream is to become “the Tesla Motors of India.” 

Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has already reached the pinnacle with her perseverance and is a role model for every woman entrepreneur. But no achievement is small. And the first steps are actually the most difficult. Our selection, in this second annual edition on women entrepreneurs, is across the spectrum, irrespective of their stage of success. The reason is, while you need iconic personalities to look up to and say, ‘I have to get there eventually’, you also need to see someone closer to where you are, to say, ‘I can do this’, without any sense of intimidation. 

On the cover, we have someone from an academically-inclined family, someone for whom showbiz was ‘unthinkable’. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan gave up architecture mid-way to plunge into the world of glamour and never looked back. Straddling a highly demanding career along with family is tricky to put it mildly, and that’s the art our celebrity woman of the year is perfecting now. 

This year, we lead the special edition with three young entrepreneurs — Ananya Birla, Ashni Biyani and Tara Singh Vachani — who are carving out an identity for themselves despite their privileged family background. There are several other remarkable women entrepreneurs profiled in this special edition and we hope you enjoy reading their stories.