Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is India’s first self-made woman billionaire.
She was born on March 23, 1953 in Bangalore, to Rasendra Mazumdar, the head brewmaster at United Breweries and Yamini Mazumdar, who owns a laundry business. Mazumdar initially planned to pursue her father’s trade. She graduated at the top of her class from the University of Ballarat, Melbourne in 1975 with a degree in brewing.
However, she soon found that brewing jobs were closed to women in India. Undaunted, she joined an Irish company, Biocon Biochemicals founded by entrepreneur Leslie Auchincloss. In 1978, Auchincloss offered to make her a partner in a new venture, Biocon India.
The company’s brief was to extract papain (an enzyme of papaya) and isinglass (obtained from tropical catfish). Within a year, Biocon India was able to manufacture these enzymes and export them to the US and Europe, becoming the first Indian company to do so. At the end of her first year, Mazumdar used her earnings to buy a 20-acre property for the expansion of the company and has revolutionised the biotech industry since then. She has also contributed significantly to clinical research and carries out many philanthropic activities.
She received the Padma Bhushan for her pioneering work in industrial biotechnology in 2005 and the Othmer Gold Medal for ‘Outstanding contributions to the Progress of Science and Chemistry’ in 2014. In 2019, she was listed as the 68th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes Magazine.
Picture Credit : Google
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