ISB Mohali starts global prog for women entrepreneurs

Chandigarh: Bengaluru-based artist Madhu Chandrika, who custom designs and creates theme-based murals, is among the women entrepreneurs who expanded their businesses after undergoing a programme for businesswomen.

Chandrika, a first-generation entrepreneur who started her business from a garage, gives credit to the Indian School of Business and Goldman Sachs for helping her scale up business through the programme.

The ISB and Goldman Sachs had launched the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Ambassadors programme for promoting women-owned businesses. More than 1,500 women entrepreneurs from more than 20 states in India have been trained since 2008, according to an ISB statement. The programme is part of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women initiative that fosters economic growth by providing women entrepreneurs around the world with business and management education, mentoring, networking, and access to capital. ISB's Mohali campus near Chandigarh has also started the programme from November 17. It will be taught by ISB faculty and industry specialists and will consist of two residencies over three months. The first residency is currently going at ISB's Mohali campus.

Talking about her experience as an artist running a business here, Chandrika said, "I started this company from a garage just after my college and I had no clue how a business runs. I was already 14 years into the business when I joined the GS 10k women programme. "The business was at a saturation point when I joined the programme because I was unable to understand how to scale up. Once I joined the course, the mentors made us understand finance and read documents. The very next year, my turnover doubled," she adds.

Bengaluru-based Gitanjali Rajamani leads GreenMyLife company as its CEO and is co-founder of Farmizen Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

"I am a first-generation entrepreneur, so the 10Kprogramme helped me immensely as for me; I was learning things from scratch. When I came for the first phase of the programme, I only had one company.

"I started my second company just after the programme with two of my co-founders. The programme helped me in starting with co-founders and seed funds. I could relate what I learnt to my business. Even now, every aspect that we discuss in class is linked with what I am doing in my real business life."

Pune based Shweta Patil is the Director for Shweta Engineers Private Limited and she too attributes her company's success to the programme.

"My parents started the company in the early 1980s but had to shut it down because of the labour unrest in the mid-'90s. I restarted the factory from scratch just after graduation with one machine and we were making five crankshafts per day.

"Today, we produce 600 crankshafts per day. The programme came at the right time of my career as an entrepreneur. What we have learnt earlier helped us in establishing our business, but this programme is more relevant for us now as it is focusing on further growth after a certain level."

Seema Oka, Partner, Industrial Electronics & Instruments, shares, "In the late '90s when there was a dip in the defence procurement we started looking out at the private sector. That was a new sector for me and I did not know how that world worked and evaluated the vendors.

"When I got the opportunity to do the first part of the ISB GS programme, it helped me present my company to the private sector in a better way. The defence market has grown in leaps and bounds with 'Make in India' policy, and we are a part of that. Now with the current Women Ambassadors programme, we are trying to scale up further."