Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle is a podcast created by health psychologist and writer, Dr Kinjal Goyal. Each episode is a conversation with an expert in their field, as they dive deep into their journerys and experiences. The conversations are full of insight and a great way to hear, first hand, how the mind plays a pivotal role in almost everything that we do. The guests range from doctors, to writers, to those in entertainment and of course, those from mental health fields.
Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle with Namita Thapar
How do you shatter the proverbial glass ceiling and navigate the complexities of a family business in the high-stakes world of pharmaceuticals? Find out as I engage in a stimulating conversation with Namita Thapar, the Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals and one of the astute sharks on Shark Tank India. We journey through Namita's professional evolution, from a number-crunching enthusiast to a healthcare visionary, and discuss the realities of women in the pharma industry. She unearths the motivations propelling her towards nurturing budding entrepreneurs and candidly discusses the pressing need for more inclusive women's health advancements.
Join us for an episode that packs humor, humility, and hard-earned wisdom, as Namita divulges how she countered skepticism within her company and redefined her role to spearhead growth. She shares hearty laughs over becoming an internet meme while imparting the gravity of mentorship and resilience in both personal and professional realms. Namita's story is not just about reaching the pinnacle of success; it's about the relentless spirit of overcoming every challenge along the way, a true testament to the entrepreneurial fire that burns within her.
#GlassCeiling #FamilyBusiness #PharmaceuticalIndustry #NamitaThapar #ExecutiveDirector #EmcurePharmaceuticals #SharkTankIndia #WomenInLeadership #HealthcareVisionary #WomenEntrepreneurs #InclusiveHealthcare #ProfessionalEvolution #Mentorship #Resilience #EntrepreneurialSpirit #BusinessSuccess #PersonalGrowth #HardEarnedWisdom #Podcast #DetangleByKinjal #Humility #SuccessJourney #InspiringConversations #WomenEmpowerment #EntrepreneurialFire
Welcome to Detangle, where we untangle the complexities of life one conversation at a time. I'm your host, dr Kinjal Goel, a psychologist and a writer. Sharks are supposed to be fierce and formidable, but the one I have the privilege of hosting today is a shark with a difference. I'm super excited to have with me Namita Thapar, the executive director of M-Cure Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Pune. M-cure has a presence in more than 70 countries and an employee strength of over 10,000. An MBA and a CA by education, namita is one of the sharks on the popular TV show Shark Tank India, which has now been running successfully into its third season. From owning her memes to shattering the glass ceiling, she is a true inspiration. Welcome, namita, and thank you for joining me on Detangle today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, kinjal and Tyree, my pleasure.
Speaker 1:Well, namita, there's so much I need to learn from you. There's so much I want to ask you. Let's just get started with the questions and let's see where they take us. Sounds good. So tell us, namita, about your early years. Were you, as a child, always interested in business? Was this a part you always thought you would follow you?
Speaker 2:know, actually I wanted to become a doctor because I felt nothing is more noble than saving lives and I wanted to become a teacher. So those were the two things I started off with and then I realized I couldn't handle the blood. So charging accountancy was the next option. Given my love for numbers, I've always been a numbers nerd and so that's kind of my process of elimination how I went to my second love, which is numbers. And then, of course, having an inspiration at home and being part of dinner table conversations where my father would be talking business, talking numbers, talking sales, brand building, that also put a love for just creating an impact, and so being in business and being in healthcare, that was a second passion. So these were kind of things that evolved over a period of time and I'm really happy in the place I'm at right now because I genuinely do things that I love doing.
Speaker 1:How nice. I've also noticed, namita, that you've taken the idea of just business into so many different dimensions, be it a nationally aired show, or your early time with YEA, now your own academy, of course, the business itself, I mean. What keeps you motivated to try so many things?
Speaker 2:I really believe in the concept of being a lifelong learner. I think you have to be humble enough to know that you have a lot of flaws. You're going to be dumb at times, you're going to make a lot of mistakes and don't take yourself too seriously. As always, I have this quest of constantly growing learning and that's why I try multiple things. Of course, the academy which teaches entrepreneurship to teenagers, 11 to 19 year olds, which I've been running for seven years. That again goes back to my earlier point of somewhere within me.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be a teacher and I worked very closely with the kids. I write the curriculum, the case studies, I go for the investor panels where these kids paid. It just keeps the teacher dream in me alive and these kids teach me a lot too. Somewhere along the way you get skeptical, jaded and they keep that wonder and vulnerability in me alive Again, purely selfish reasons. That's the academy part, the rest of the stuff I keep doing, because these are ways you step outside your comfort zone and you keep learning and growing. I think everyone has to have a humility to know that they are inadequate, they have a lot of flaws and you have to keep learning and growing as you go along and, of course, have a lot of fun along the way as well. It's not worth it if you're not having fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and that shows. I think that shows through your work. So that's wonderful. Also, namita, the pharmaceutical workspace, like a lot of other areas in the past, has been male dominated and merely saturated with male thought for a very long time. Did it ever feel like a boy's club to you, or did you have to break in and emerge?
Speaker 2:I think I'm older, so when we were younger, which is about 25 years back, when we enter the workforce it did feel quite male dominated. But I'm very happy to see that things are changing, and things are changing very rapidly these days, with more women entering the workforce. Of course, it's not the percentage that is ideal, but at least there are green shoes and we are seeing a lot of progress. So that's very nice to see. And more than at the workforce.
Speaker 2:You know, I saw either a lovely McKinsey survey or whatever article that's come up on women in healthcare and women's health in general, and I wrote an article in LinkedIn as well. What is more shocking is a lack of women in research, in funding for women's health issues, in clinical trial representation, and I think these are deeper issues. So we need to have women representation at the workforce. But what's coming out are some very startling statistics that women's health in research, funding clinical trials, needs a lot more representation. If we need to change the statistics in that space as well. And, kingeal, you're in healthcare, so I don't know if you know the statistics, but World Economic Forum runs a survey on women's health and every year they survey around 156 countries and India consistently ranks bottom two, which is where 154th in ranking in women's health. That's how low we are. So women's health in general, and not just the workforce, is an area that needs a lot more attention, and I hope that we see these statistics changing to some extent, at least in my lifetime.
Speaker 1:I'm sure, with the kind of work you are doing and with the kind of tribe you have formed around you, there will be changes soon enough. And, like you rightly said, even in my field of work as a psychologist, I see it very easy for doctors to label a woman as simply having maybe an emotional disturbance over and above a physical disorder. It's easier to say women must be simply just stressed. So, yes, yeah, also, namita, you have two wonderful boys, jay and Veeve. It's an unfair question to ask a successful businesswoman how she balances family and business, because we don't ask the question to men with children. So let me ask you something else instead how do your boys perceive your work? I mean, how do they react to your success or to your need to be away at times?
Speaker 2:It's not always easy. So initially they did not like it at all and they were very anti-sharp time because there was loss of privacy. When we went for vacations or even dinners or movie outings, People would mob me for selfies and want my time and attention and they felt that you know that's time away from their mom, or mom has to be with them, versus the kids, and so they did not like it at all. It took them some time to really understand that what mom is doing at Shaftag is so much bigger. She's helping people, she's giving back to the startup ecosystem. This is something that's transformed the way people in India are thinking about entrepreneurship. And then, once they got that, things turned around, and now, of course, there are a lot more accommodating and proud, but it was a journey.
Speaker 2:So I'm not going to be fake and say, oh, it's great and there's a lovely balance Even outside of Shaftag. I don't think there's ever a balance and I don't think you can ever have it all. There are some days I prioritize work and my kids hate me for it, and there are some days I prioritize kids and my work suffers because of it. But you know, as long as I am clear of when I wake up that morning what my priority is going to be and I am at peace and happy with what my decision is. You know that's all that matters. I'm too old now to really look at others for that validation, and you know my inner voice is all the report card that I really need.
Speaker 1:How wonderful to be liberated with age. I think it's something all of us need and I hope all of us achieve. Talking about your success, you've been working for so many years to finally break the glass ceiling, to claim your place under the sun. What people tend to see is this overnight success, not the grueling days and nights or the struggles you mentioned. Tell us some of your other struggles in your workspace.
Speaker 2:The first struggle started with chartered accountancy, because clearing everything in the first attempt at the age of 21 was literally 1% of Indians do that. So I remember putting my life on hold and sometimes I'd see my friends enjoying their young days, clubbing and partying. I chose to not do all that because I was so driven by becoming a chartered accountant. That was a lot of hard work I put in for four years. I was the first girl from my family to go abroad without being married. That was chattering, a lot of glass ceilings and there was a lot of negative chatter around that and thank God, my parents supported me. But once I went there is when the real struggle started because, being from a protected Kujju family, I was quite lost and made so many mistakes and was so traumatized.
Speaker 2:That was a lot of hard work Working in a company outside my father's for six years so many. It's so easy to just join your family business right after your MBA, but I chose to work for six years in a company that was not my father's and that really shaped me and that really shaped my work ethic. But that was a lot of hard work living in the US, being married, working, being pregnant, having a kid just balancing a lot of things, which is much harder in the US, I think, than in India, where you have a lot more help and support, True, and then once I came in the workforce, when I joined my father's business, I thought the red carpet would be rolled out to be given my double degree and my six years work experience abroad. But there were a lot of old timers who did not take me seriously and even when I was pregnant the second time they thought I won't come back.
Speaker 2:So breaking a lot of those stereotypes and old time sort of mindsets was not always easy. My own father, when I wanted to transition from finance to sales and marketing and own the India business, was not very comfortable with it and then working with him to make that happen. So I think challenges are a part of everybody's life. It's not just me. Anybody who's driven and anybody who's hard working and anybody who's in the workspace will always have challenges. You just have to learn and keep learning from those challenges and just stay resilient, and then things work out.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Let's talk about what you just mentioned on Shark Tank. Now. It's a great franchise. It's helping bring the spirit of entrepreneurship to every household. It has never, honestly, been a better time to be an entrepreneur, especially in India. But personally, have you ever felt that it's to try something completely out of the box? If I'm not mistaken, I remember seeing something of a machine that you had developed to measure hemoglobin levels in women. I mean, do you also have this itch to just make something of your own To?
Speaker 2:be very honest. People don't realize that 87% of India's GDP comes from family businesses and even in a family business, to scale it requires an entrepreneurial mindset. And I'm so fulfilled and so challenged by my job at MQ and so many new things that I keep doing, like right now the thing I'm working on is MQ's primary customers, the doctors. That requires very different sales and marketing than D2C, which is going direct to consumer. I'm going D2C and I want to own the women's health space and we're launching our first product on Women's Day, which is March 8th. Now, doing that is completely an entrepreneurial venture within MQ because it's never been done before. So I'm so challenged and fulfilled by my job at MQ that every day there's something new, something challenging. Until that challenge and growth is there at MQ, I don't really feel the need to do something outside of MQ.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. Actually, it's a very different way of thinking and expressing and articulating your thought. Because I agree with you, family businesses are not just black and white. They have all shades within them and to be able to create something within something which is so massive is a challenge. There was a meme. I'm sure you have been asked this question a million times, but I'm going to go ahead and do it During the first season of Shark Tank, with you saying you know he may be expertise, so I'm out. People made it into a meme. A lot of people would have said this is online trolling, traumatic hurt, but you did the unimaginable. I have never seen somebody take it in their stride, make it funnier, own it and show the netizens whose boss I mean. Where did you get such emotional grit? It's not simple, but it came from somewhere.
Speaker 2:You know, it again comes down to humility, right? I mean, don't? I think some people take themselves too seriously and then want to have this perfect image of being the perfect person. And when you are down that path where you take yourself too seriously, or this perfect image and one this perfect sort of you know things being told about you, that's when you're in trouble in life in every sense and that's when your mental health goes for a toss.
Speaker 2:The opposite effect where opposite approach where you stay humble and you say you know what, I'm going to be stupid at times, I have a lot of flaws. I don't want to be serious all the time and I am who I am. You know, at times I'm silly, at times I'm serious, and it doesn't matter, it's just who I am. And, yes, maybe some expertise, but he's not here, it's a fact. I'm not God and I don't ever claim that I know everything. And if I don't know something, hey, founder, go get a better investor than me, because you'll be better off for that, and I genuinely believe in that. So I think when you don't take yourself too seriously, when you embrace your flaws, when you have fun with it, life just becomes a lot easier. And then you know you, just the trolling doesn't get to you as much, so that's that I prefer to live life that way.
Speaker 1:I have. Fantastic because we come from a generation where this wasn't taught to us. We did not see others dealing with it. You know we don't have any precedence, so you haven't seen others do the right thing or the wrong thing. This is something you're, you know, self-taught, which is amazing that it has gone so well.
Speaker 2:I'm not just self-taught. I've been lucky to have good mentors and they're older than me, so what they learned later they're teaching me right now, and I'm lucky that I'm a public face so I can teach others through my Instagram. My social media handles what my mentors taught me. So a lot of this is not self-taught. A lot of this is, you know, I've been down and I've been sad and then they've lifted me by teaching me all this. So that's why, you know, I've written that book, the Dolphin and the Shark and a lot of it is my life experiences, and I've dedicated a chapter on mentors because I genuinely feel that my mentors have played a very important role in shaping me and making me who I am today.
Speaker 1:Right. I think gratitude towards our teachers is something we inherently should keep with us. Yeah, and that goes a long way. Tell me, is there any advice that you wish you had received earlier in your career, something you learned through your mentors, but something you wish you didn't have to learn so late? Become thick-skinned.
Speaker 2:So you know me being this thick-skinned and I don't give a damn about the world happened much later to me. It happened in my late 30s, and had I been that way in my early 20s and not really cared about external validation as much and just been completely thick-skinned and only gone with my inner voice something I learned much later had I done that sooner, I would have been so much more productive and happier. So that's the one thing I do wish I had learned sooner.
Speaker 1:So is there something you would want to tell new age entrepreneurs or women in business, especially as they start off? Is there something you know, as a little piece of advice, you want to give them emotionally, that this is where you should start?
Speaker 2:I think number one is be authentic. I find too many people trying to be too fake and posture and create an image and people see through that, whereas people also see through authenticity. So I think the number one thing is be true to yourself and just be real in life, good and bad. That is one. The second thing is Failure is still a taboo in our country and I think the biggest lessons come when you embrace failure, when you welcome failure, when you look forward to setbacks and learning experiences, because the best learning doesn't come from your CEO, your MBA or your work experience, but it comes from these lives, setbacks and failures. So keeping a positive mindset towards that is very healthy and very, very, very good for your career growth.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's so well put in such a short span of words. I mean so economically. You've used your words and just said it all. Do this, this, this and you're sorted Fantastic. So, like we discussed earlier, the psychology of the Indian workplaces now evolving, but apparently not fast enough. Women are coming in, but not at the pace that we would want them to. Is there anything that can be done in the workplace or outside the workplace to notch this in the right direction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, for example, another chapter in my book is about culture of descent. So I like to surround myself with people who are smarter than me and people who tell me I'm wrong and people who challenge me. And actually we have awards that we give out for the best challenger right or for the best dissenter. And I think if you make the workspace a place where it's safe to challenge, safe to dissent and safe to speak up, you just become a better leader and a more evolved leader and you have better decisions for the company coming that way. So there are a lot of things like that that we do at the workspace to promote healthy debate, healthy, you know, just discussions. So this is one example, but there are lots of things that HR can very consciously do and the leaders can very consciously do at the work space. Lovely.
Speaker 1:So, personally speaking, is there any routine, any ritual that you swear by on a daily basis, any you know like? Is it a life of discipline, or is it one of share, abandoned and going with the flow? For you, Definitely disciplined.
Speaker 2:So I'm very consistent in terms of my workout routine. And more so, you know, I discovered the beauty of yoga and silence. I wouldn't exactly call it meditation, I would call it silence, because sometimes it's just good to get away and just be alone and reflect. So not so much try to force yourself to breathe a certain way or say some mantras or just all of that. Be in silence and be with your thoughts and enjoy your own company and reflect. So yoga and silence has helped me stay centered, because our lives are so complex that sometimes you get overwhelmed and when you get overwhelmed you get burnt out and then that really leads to a lot of health issues at work. Also, you get irritable, you snap. So I have learned the art of just getting detached and doing my yoga and being in silence Wherever I feel that onslaught of complexity and that rush of, you know, being a little overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:Lovely. So I think discipline goes a longer way than simply motivation. Motivation goes up and it goes down, but discipline just keeps going. You need both. True. Let me ask you something more personal now, namita. I'm sure you've heard of a physical first aid box. You know a box we keep at home. We have a little bandaid antiseptic sphane killers for those small cuts and bruises. But if you were to have a personal mental first aid box, you know a kind of box that you could open on a bad day that you've had emotionally, and you would find things which make you instantly happy. What would you put in it?
Speaker 2:So I not not a lot of people know this, but I keep a book of my loved ones and I'm on my 10th scrapbook right now and they're massive books, or 10 scrapbook means they're like pretty massive books and tickets, pictures, mementos, small things. I just a leaf, a flower, I just put it in that scrapbook and then I write notes so that I don't forget those memories. And so my go-to thing on a bad day is I open my scrapbook and when I see those pictures and those memories and I realize how grateful I am and how lucky I am, that instantly gets me out of my bad mood. So my scrapbook is my mental health kit.
Speaker 1:How beautiful. So before I could even ask you the question, you've already been answering it all these years. Yes, that's fantastic. So tell me three things about yourself that most people don't know.
Speaker 2:Oh God, I think now I've become such a public figure and I'm so open and I think people know everything about me. I don't think there's other than this crab book, which I don't think I've written much about. I don't think there's anything, you don't know about.
Speaker 1:Actually, that's also a wonderful way to be. You're just like a crab book yourself.
Speaker 2:I like to say I'm an open book, I mean whatever, and I'm a fairly simple person, I'm not that complex. There are only like five or six dimensions to me which are all in the public and people know that about me. So I don't really think there is stuff that people don't know about me.
Speaker 1:Okay, tell me this then what is your one single pet peeve, one thing that you wish people would just stop doing?
Speaker 2:Arrogance. I think arrogance really puts me off and I find that very annoying and I actually delete such people from my life. I don't meet them a second time.
Speaker 1:Oh lovely, I like this. You've gone from real life to real life. You just deleted me.
Speaker 2:I just deleted them. I don't meet them again. I have a very busy life and I'm very selective of my people that I interact with.
Speaker 1:Right. As we come to the end of this discussion, namita, I leave the floor open to you, as I do with all my guests. Is there any question that you would like to ask me as a psychologist?
Speaker 2:Kindle? Not really. I think we covered a lot in this half an hour and my apologies. I know we've been trying to schedule this for a while, but it's just been. You know, like I said, we're going public, so a lot going on, but great conversation covering a bunch of topics. So thank you for that. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1:No, it's been my pleasure, namita. Let me just wrap up with some closing remarks on what we've discussed. We've gone from early struggles, we've gone from embracing the silence. We have gone from exponential growth to actually living a simple life and a beautiful scrapbook that people can try as their own mental first aid box. It has been so nice talking to you, it has been so nice discussing these little snippets with you, just to bring it all together for our listeners so that they know that life is not overnight success, but every struggle counts and every struggle pays. So thank you for your time, thank you for being with me on Detangle, and I wish you all the best with your IPO. I wish you all the best with your future and with Shartan. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Kimya, thank you so much.
