The lady who has always dreamt big and then left no stone unturned toward making them come true! The lady with a strong mind and heart decided early on in life to do only what she thought was right and not to pay heed to those against her. She is currently serving as the executive director at Emcure Pharmaceutical in India. The mystery woman won many hearts as the judge in Shark Tank India. Although she became a household name from the tele series, few know much about her personal life. Here is her life in short.
Early Life and Education
Namita Thapar hails from a conservative Gujarati family where a lot of importance was given to education. As a child, Namita was extremely studious and spent most of her growing-up years studying hard to secure the first rank in her class. She considers her mother as her role model. Her mother got married at a very young age, due to which, she could not fulfill most of her dreams.
Namita’s mom always wanted her daughter to be independent, become a business leader, and earn her own money. She showed her pictures of young and successful businesswomen from a very young age and told her that she has to become like them one day. Her tales inspired Namita at a very young age and she grew quite ambitious as a result.
Namita studied hard and became a chartered accountant at the age of 21. She then headed to Duke University in America to get her MBA degree. After earning her degree, she did a job at Silicon Valley in the U.S. For six years, she worked in 2 different companies in the U.S. She feels these six years taught her a lot in the industry. She learned business tactics and discipline during these years. Soon, she thought of moving back to India to do something for her country.
She came back to India and joined as the Chief Financial Officer CFO in her dad’s company. It was then that she realized that it was quite tough to earn respect. She had to struggle a lot to make herself heard in the company. She realized that none of her colleagues welcomed her opinions easily.
However, after pursuing this position for 10 years, she decided to shift her gears. She joined Emcure India as the Executive Director and from there, her career path sky-rocketed.
Emcure India
Namita Thapar shot to fame when she appeared as a judge on Shark Tank India as one of the leading India heads of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Pune, Maharashtra. The product portfolio includes injectables, capsules, and tablets.
The company has seen a global expansion since Thapar’s entry. It recorded a recent turnover of $750 million.
Interesting Tidbits from her Life
- When she returned from the U.S and started living in India, she often noticed that people found it hard to digest women at the forefront. She reveals in a talk show how when guests used to come to their house and she used to question them about something, they used to look upon her father to give their reply. She found it quite strange why can’t men make eye-to-eye contact with women. She was quite pacified when she read the biography of Indra Nooyi, the CEO of Pepsico, who also mentioned the same episode in her life in the U.S. Namita then concluded that the world over, people found it hard to accept women in top positions.
- Namita is quite passionate about women’s health and runs various programs to educate Indian women on mental and physical health. She believes that women are great at multi-tasking, but are terrible at guilt management. She has herself experienced a lot of guilt when she had to choose between attending her sons’ school events or attending office meetings. She was guilty about what people would label her as. Today, she believes that we are more afraid of what people tag us as instead of what we feel about something.
- She launched a unique talk show, Uncondition Yourself, which aims to break societal stigmas and taboos associated with women’s health.
- Namita Thapar leads Incredible Ventures Ltd, a company dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship to teenagers.
Awards and Accolades
- Namita Thapar has received various prestigious corporate awards such as The Economic Times ’40 under Forty’ Award, Economic Times 2017 Women Ahead List, Barclays Hurun Next Gen Leader recognition, World Women Leadership Congress Super Achiever award, and many others.
- She serves as a Board Member on the India Regional Advisory Board of Fuqua School of Business.
- She is a trustee on the TiE Mumbai Board of Trustees.
- Namita Thapar is an active member of the Young Presidents Organization.
