?I succeeded because I pursued my dreams?

Year 2008 couldn?t have ended on a better note for Sushma Berlia. The president of Apeejay Stya group won the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry outstanding businesswoman award on December 17. It was a well earned award. Her corporate journey since the day she took over the business from her father, Stya Paul, has had its fair share of trials and tribulations. However, she sailed through the storm. Her perseverance and diligence helped the company to survive the hard times.

Recollects 49-year-old Sushma, ?When my father decided to retire from the business in 1989, the assets were apportioned among the family. At that time I was a young mother of three children, leading a content family life in Mumbai. However, when the responsibility of taking over and turning around my father?s business was entrusted to me, I had to rise to the occasion.?? Once she took over the business, there was no looking back. Sushma has not only consolidated the business, but also launched many successful projects.

Today, the Apeejay Stya Group is a leading privately and closely- held industrial and investment house in India with interests in the Middle East, Europe and East Asia. The group has a formidable presence in pharma, education and of late in the real estate sector. Sushma has policies and procedures defined for each of the businesses ?whether it is logistics and distribution, handling for the bulk drug business or simply having monthly review meetings to check that systems are running smoothly.

Her lessons in management started early and there have been many. ?The first lesson was that it is easier to set up a new company than it is to turn around an existing company. Two, when your business is in a mess, you can hire experts but they cannot solve the problems. As an owner you need to be self-motivated and roll up your sleeves to turn around the business,? she asserts.

The days of extreme challenges may be long gone, but Sushma remembers the lessons like it was yesterday. ?At any given time there would be a new shock around the corner. Picking up the phone on certain days was a scary proposition as we did not know what additional challenges it would pose,? she admits. However, she has no regrets and what those days taught her was that recognising reality is a virtue and the experience also gave her the self-confidence to be able to take care of herself even if she were stranded on the street with nothing left.

Today, Sushma can offer a lesson or two to those in similar situations. She relies on ?humane objectivity? in evaluating the performance of her business. She says, ?One can?t fool oneself about the reasons for which one is in business. It?s to create wealth for the organisation, employees and community. If the organisation is not showing the results, you need to seriously consider its viability. While you don?t have to be cold blooded and ignore brand, reputation and capability it may have built over the years, you still need to keep an eye on the bottomline.?

If Sushma?s father was her coach as a child, her husband took on that role in her adulthood. Known for his financial and strategic acumen, Vijay Kumar Berlia gave his wife the first two/ three years to figure out the nuances of the business she had taken over from her father. He later became more hands on and guided and worked with her in turning around the businesses.

Sushma quickly learnt the tricks of the trade and some of the early decisions she took stood her in good stead for a long time. For instance, she decided to close /down the steel plant. The reason: The machinery was outdated, there were cash losses and Thane was not a conducive location. Today the company is using the same real estate to develop offices for itself and its partners. ?Of course, my husband has always been a pillar of strength,? she acknowledges.

In due course, her husband?s company Svran Group merged with the Apeejay Stya Group. She says, ?The two companies shared synergies and leveraged each other?s strengths, particularly after I demonstrated that I had the confidence and capability to carry the business on my own shoulders.?

She describes the merger of these two groups as ?seamless?. Sushma?s husband has a reputation as a ?chemical king? and was known as ?one of the biggest exporters of chemicals in the country?. His ability to form alliances within the pharma sector clinched it for the combined business.

Sushma?s contribution to the Indian pharmaceutical industry can?t be overlooked. She has been keenly involved in the formulation of drug norms and the process leading to price regulations. She was nominated to represent India at the Commission of Biotech Society by the International Chamber of Commerce. She was also nominated to represent the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) in the Internet Task Force of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (IFPMA ). Sushma added a feather in her cap when she was elected president of PHDCCI in 2005, becoming the first-ever women in history to head a leading multi-state apex chamber of commerce in India.

An alumnus of the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Shimla and Delhi and Lady Shri Ram College with a masters in business economics from the Delhi University, Sushma is also vice-president of the Apeejay Education Society, which runs 13 schools (in north India) and 13 institutions of higher and professional education (management, IT, engineering, fine arts, design etc) with a combined enrollment of 32,000 students.

A staunch believer in intensive industry-academia engagement, she is on the Delhi government?s working group on technical education for the formulation of the Tenth Plan. She is keen to accomplish new standards of research with international alliances through the Apeejay Stya Education Research Foundation.

Sushma is agitated by the dismal status of women. She says a lot needs to be done to change the mindset of the people. She says the girl child should be brought up and encouraged to have her own dreams just as she was encouraged by her father. She says, ?Parents and schools can play a major role in imparting a better education to girls.?

She credits her father for her early induction into business from the time she was seven or eight years and after spending a day with him in the office or factory he would freely speak about why he did some of the things that he did during the day, why he handled situations in a particular manner or why he behaved the way he did in his interaction with people. Sushma believes, ?There could have been no better induction than that in the world of business.? In her own case, she is proud of her daughter Neha, an economics graduate from the Stanford University. But Sushma is not certain whether Neha would follow in her footsteps.

When asked about how she manages to balance her personal, professional and philanthropic work, Sushma simply shrugs her shoulders and says, ?I don?t think about it too much, I just do it. Just as any working, family man would live up to his responsibilities irrespective of ups and downs. I think of myself as no different and go about doing what I have to do. I believe that I succeeded because I learnt from every mistake I made, believed in myself and pursued my dreams.?