Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is an Indianentrepreneur. She is the Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Limited a biotechnology company based in Bangalore (Bengaluru), India.
Edu Qual:
Mazumdar-Shaw completed her schooling from the city’s Bishop Cotton Girl’s High School(1968). She wanted to join medical school but instead took up biology and completed her BSc Zoology Honours course from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore University (1973). She later did her post-graduation in Malting and Brewing from Ballarat College, Melbourne University (1975).
She worked as a trainee brewer in Carlton and United Breweries, Melbourne and as a trainee maltster at Barrett Brothers and Burston, Australia. She also worked for some time as a technical consultant at Jupiter Breweries Limited, Calcutta and as a technical manager at Standard Maltings Corporation, Baroda between 1975 and 1977.[2]
She started Biocon in 1978 and spearheaded its evolution from an industrial enzymes manufacturing company to a fully integrated bio-pharmaceutical company with a well-balanced business portfolio of products and a research focus on diabetes, oncology and auto-immune diseases. She also established two subsidiaries: Syngene (1994) to provide development support services for discovery research and Clinigene (2000) to cater to clinical development services.[3][2]
Her pioneering work in the sector has earned her several awards, including the prestigious Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005) from the government of India. She was recently named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. She is on the Forbes list of the world’s 100 most powerful women and the Financial Times’ top 50 women in business list.[2]. She is also a member of the board of governors of the prestigious Indian School of Business [4] and Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad[5]
Qualities
“Knowledge does not have a gender divide – women scientists, women engineers, women writers have enormous