Family Businesses with Women at the Helm are Prosperous Says This Second-GenWomen Need to Do a Lot to Stop Limiting Themselves Says Emcure Pharmaceuticals' Namita Thapar

Namita Thapar is the Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals has nearly 15 years of work experience. Before joining the family business, she received a Masters in Business Administration degree from Duke University, USA.

Emcure Pharmaceuticals, headquartered at Pune in West India, is an Indian pharmaceutical company. The company's products include tablets, capsules (both softgel capsules and hard-gel capsules), and injectables.

Founded in 1983, it is an MNC with 9,000 employee strength and an operating income of $ 22 crore and is counted among one of the leading players in the Indian pharmaceutical industry.

In a chat with Entrepreneur India, Thapar spoke at length about how Indian woman can become more relevant as entrepreneurs and why Indian women to need to take the helm to build businesses.

"Women entrepreneurship is very close to my heart; over years, a lot of women have come forward. Currently, the statistics are terrible so only 32 out of 500 companies have women CEOs. I hope we see the world changing as we go forward and it is up to women like us who are in position and power that we develop that culture.

She said shepreneurs need to make sure of women-friendly work environment and increase the percentage of women in their companies. At the same time, the women need to do a lot to stop limiting themselves.

"My favorite quote is "Women are great at time management and terrible at guilt management', they need to speak up more whether it's a raise or a designation jump. They need to market themselves more I think – it's a combination of both," believes Thapar.

Being the founder and CEO of Incredible Ideas, a franchisee of Young Entrepreneurs Academy, USA, which brings innovative entrepreneurship education to middle and high school students in India, Thapar feels very strongly for corporate ownerships.

She thinks Corporate India needs to do a lot more; societal biases have to change, and as women have to change themselves. She is optimistic that if all these things will fall in place, India will not have the statistic like the labour force participation falling from 37 to 27.

She believes corporates need to involve more and more females in the ventures, they need to work on the work culture as in making it more women-friendly and also the women themselves need to change for betterment they need to speak up for their rights and deserving designation at workplace they need to bring a positive change in themselves first.

Namita also serves on the Board of Finolex Cables and is an active member of Young Presidents Organization.

She is a graduate in Commerce from the Pune University. She is a Certified Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and received her MBA from The Fuqua School of Business in 2001.

She is married to Emcure's President of Corporate Development and Strategy, Vikas Thapar.