Anu Aga

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Does Anu Aga drink alcohol? Yes [4]Book.Anu Aga is an Indian entrepreneur and one of the richest women in India, and she is also a social worker. She has faced multiple tragedies in her life and is labelled as one of the most influential corporate leaders of India.Anu was born in an upper-middle-class Parsi family in Mumbai.After completing her studies, Anu met Rohinton Aga, he pursued his education from Cambridge and worked at Wanson India with Anus father. She fell in love with him and later, both got married in 1965. Meanwhile, Anu worked in the Child Guidance Clinic and proceeded a family.Anu Agas father, A S Bhathena, was the founder of the company Thermax global which was earlier known by the name of Wanson India. The company was founded in the year 1966. Earlier, it was a hospital equipment firm that was in coalition with the Belgian company, Wanson. After a few years, Wanson India extended into a boiler manufacturing firm. In 1980, Wanson India disintegrated with its Belgian partner and resumed itself as Thermax Private Limited. In the upcoming year, A S Bhathena retired as the chairman and Rohinton Aga shouldered the title of Chairperson and Managing Director of the company.A few years after the birth of their first child, Meher, Anu lost her second daughter to an unfamiliar illness. Later, in 1972, they were blessed with another boy child, Kurush, who was unfortunately born with a hole in his heart.In 1980, her father retired and Rohintons took over the charge of the company, Wanson India. Later, it was renamed into Thermax, gradually, it grew into a respected engineering firm with interests in energy and environment.A series of tragedies began one after the other. In 1982, one sudden day, Rohinton had a massive heart attack, and while undergoing bypass surgery, he suffered a paralytic stroke. Rohinton consumed two years for his recovery and during that time, Anu got involved in the family business. Anu joined the human resources team at Thermax. Soon after his recovery, Rohinton took over the charge of Thermax again. He also wrote a book during his recovery. In 1995, the company went public, and then, Anu headed as the HR of the company. Anu Aga with Thermax Board of Directors.In 1996, after the first delivery of her daughter, Meher, a chemical engineer living in London, Anu was returning from the UK while Rohinton was heading his way from Pune to Mumbai to receive Anu as she was returning after a gap of 6 months, he suffered his second massive heart stroke in which he lost his life. His demise brought a major setback in Anus life; moreover, having gone public a year earlier, the company was then accountable to shareholders. A striking downfall occurred in the Indian economy, that caused Thermaxs share price to plunge from Rs 400 to Rs 36. Thermax suffered a loss of 13 crores and was about to disintegrate. A shareholder even accused Anu of letting him down. In an interview, talking about this setback in their life, Anus daughter, Mehar, quoted, It was a huge responsibility. The board had to make the tough decision of her heading the organisation within 48 hours of dads demise. My mothers courage of conviction surfaced and she had to come up with a turnaround plan..According to Anu, on the second or third day after her husbands demise, the board met, and they chose Anu to take over the charge as her family owned 62% shares at that time and all the executives agreed to that decision; moreover, she felt they chose her as they could bully her and get their way through, but, she was not happy with the decision as she was not prepared for it because she felt she had no knowledge about engineering and was not good at finance. Also, she was bearing the sudden loss of her husband, but looking at the loss of the company, she realised, neither her father nor her husband were from the engineering background and yet they ran the engineering company so well. Soon, she realised, one could always take help from others and learn. Likewise, she held various pieces of training and went on to learn and progress. Anu took over the charge and consulted BCG and launched the Project Green. After becoming the chairperson of Thermax, Anu made a lot of changes. Aga dismissed the entire board, including her daughter Meher Pudumjee, she replaced them with the fresh members who could restructure the entire companys business. She pruned employees, cut unnecessary investments in non-core businesses and hired the Boston Consulting Group to restructure the company.