Namita Thapar, who shall be returning for the second season of Shark Tank India is the Executive Director at Emcure, an Indian global pharmaceutical company based out of Pune. The prominent businesswoman had joined Emcure as CFO, after a six-year stint at Guidant Corporation, USA. She now manages Emcure's largest business unit, the India business.
The MBA graduate from the Fuqua School of Business and a Chartered Accountant from ICAI has always been passionate about improving women's health in India and promoting youth entrepreneurship. During the Covid pandemic she had launched a YouTube talk show on women's health called Uncondition Yourself with Namita. "I had come across a World Economic Forum Report which said that out of 156 countries surveyed on women's health, India was ranked 155th. I felt it was our responsibility to spread awareness about women's health, as most people don't know about illnesses, the symptoms, and diagnosis and then there are also taboos around it. So it was a way to educate the masses in a layman terms on health issues so that the ranking eventually improves. I have been in healthcare for 20 years and with every show my personal knowledge about health conditions increased, serving as an eye opener," Thapar tells us.
And what about her lessons for women entrepreneurs?
"Women entrepreneurs should remember that rather than having discussions around gender, the discussions should be around numbers, results, profitability and outcomes, which helps keep the conversations objective," she says. Another interesting initiative started by her is Incredible Ventures Limited, which teaches entrepreneurship to youngsters aged 11-18 years. Thapar says her reason for starting it was that as her son was growing up, she realized that kids have a lot of potential, and very early on they need to be taught two things- a problem solving mindset and being comfortable with failure. Though the course is on entrepreneurship, behind that is learning a lot of these critical skills like the ones she mentioned.
Thapar says she's not much of a social person, as her life revolves around work and home, and that hasn't changed much post the Shark Tank fame, apart from being hounded for selfies. "The good thing about social media has been that now I can use the power of my voice to talk on important topics, since people will listen. It's a big responsibility, and should be used well," Thapar says about her power to influence people.