PROFILE
Ms Zia Hajeebhoy Life, education and career Zia is from Mumbai and done her schooling in Mumbai. She then went to St. Xavier’s College and passed out with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics. Thereafter, she did her MBA in marketing and sales from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS). Her first job was at Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), where she started as a management trainee. “I studied in Mumbai and have always been keen on the outdoors. I enjoyed trekking and sailing and first experienced windsurfing in Goa during college days. My Corporate career with companies like Unilever, Reckitt Benkiser, IL&FS and Monsanto all helped me fine tune the skills needed to create a business and run it. Career in sales and marketing Growing up in a family where her mother was a teacher and her aunts were all working women, Zia proudly says, “My family is one where women work and make their mark and I don’t think there was any question in mind about whether or not it is possible to succeed.” Zia pursued her MBA, joined Unilever and focused on building a career in sales and marketing. There were a lot of challenges, she says she had to travel a lot to small towns. “In the early days for a woman to travel in rural India and to work in areas which are more male dominated was challenging but also very fulfilling. The companies I worked for were committed to making it work and once again if you are committed and passionate about what you do you are bound to succeed,” she said. Only when she looks back now, it gives her a feeling that she had a tough time, but she says, “At that time I only knew that was what I had to do. If you have set your mind to do a great job, you will do a great job.” To work in sales and marketing at that period of time was a tough job for a woman. As she looks back now, and more so as she is very much involved with gender diversity, she says, “You realise that it was not that easy. Compared to the opportunities we had then, women have much more opportunity today. There is flexibility, more opportunity, you can work from home, and there are many businesses where women are more acceptable.” Every youngster today wants to be an entrepreneur. How do you see this growing trend? It is important to have the right reasons to be an entrepreneur. There has to be deep drive that is sustainable, a great idea and the ability to back that idea with execution. Entrepreneurs dream but successful entrepreneurs dream and make it a reality by focusing on nuts and bolts of the business. It also requires knowledge of the domain area. So as long as the reason is strong and sustainable it’s great. But, today’s youth also needs to realise that opportunities are vast in the professional world and they must know their own mind set and personality before embarking on an entrepreneurial journey. Then again, nothing ventured nothing gained or as we say in sailing “A ship is safe in harbour but that’s
PROFILE (contd…) not what ships are meant for”. So if you want to be an entrepreneur do it for the right reasons and be prepared for a long journey. Has your earlier work experiences, helped you in your entrepreneurial journey? Yes certainly—the how to do things, the ability to build a foundation for growth comes from the corporate experience I was fortunate to have— for example we have invested in CRM, SOPs, data management and IP all of which are key to build sustainable growth. We also built a great support system along the way and people have been amazingly helpful at different points in time on our journey. At Aquasail it is all about teamwork, how do you prepare your team members for role play? There is no comfort zone in start-ups and people who succeed are those who are problem solvers, builders and people with positive attitudes. Shakeel is a motivator, he is a coach, and he is an inspiration. I bring in processes that help people perform. This combination is what helps create a team. What binds a team is ownership and a common vision and in a start up there has to be a passion for excellence and high levels of resilience and an undying attitude to win. Did you face problems initially while setting up your leisure boating business in India and how did you overcome them? Problems are always there—regulatory, setting up of financial systems, finding the right talent at the right time. However, we have found the market support to be positive and the trends are highly encouraging. We also innovated considerably, literally creating market segments out of nothing—and that is a rule in new markets that there are no rules on market creation. You have to find opportunities and select the right ones to back. How can sailing be a team building activity and be part of character building for school children? Sailing is a team sport, which involves leadership and team building skills–more or less like how you handle company management dynamics. In company dynamics, the biggest challenge is about dealing with uncertainty, change, adapting, working with the team—with different strengths and different levels of capability. When you make a person sail a boat, he has to deal with many variables. Sailing has the maximum number of variables, which makes it an ideal sport. Then it’s got team dynamics. With Shakeel as a racer and the combination of the boats and people we have, we are able to organise first timers’ racing events. In racing event you have a goal, which is to win, come first, to sail well, to do better in each set of races—it’s like a business environment. So, we use all those metrics related to business. There is a very powerful sailing term that we use, “You can’t control the wind but you can adjust the sails”. So, when you look at it like that, it makes business sense.