It’s Not a Man’s World -- Pallavi Jha

‘I became a representative of my father’s interests in the group’

Papiya De

In her younger days, Ms. Pallavi Jha believed that she would carve out a niche for herself outside the family business. But today, she is the chairperson and managing director of Walchand Capital, of the Walchand business group. Says Ms. Jha, “ We were not brought
up with the belief that we will be in the family business.”

Pallavi Jha

In 1989 after completing her master’s in business administration from Syracuse University in New York, USA, Ms Jha was requested to join the family business Walchand group by her father Mr Bahubali Gulabchand, who did not have a son to handover the baton to. But an offer from Procter & Gamble in India lured Ms Jha far more at that juncture. In 1991, she got a call again from her uncle to take an active interest in the restructuring that was taking place within the group. This time again, Ms Jha had to turn down the offer as she shifted base to Delhi following her husband’s transfer. She took a sabattical for two years. But in 1993, when she came back to Mumbai, and was considering picking up the threads of her career again, she decided to take the offer from her father to join Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) as executive director, corporate planning. What initially started as an external contribution became a intense involvement with time and Ms Jha found herself shouldering greater responsibilities, by “default.” Within two years of her joining HCC, Ms Jha lost her father. “I became a representative of my father’s interests in the group and a sense of belonging developed thereby,” says Ms Jha.

In engineering construction, which is a typically male dominated industry, not only did she face a strong gender bias but also the tag of being the boss’s daughter acted against her.

Subsequently as the Walchand Group underwent restructuring and ceased to exist as a group in it’s original form, Ms Jha inherited Walchand Capital, which was a non-banking financial company (NBFC) and the holding company of most of the other Walchand companies. While it is true that Walchand Capital was an asset rich company, it had little in terms of actual business activities. “In a sense, it was like an entrepreneurial venture as we made efforts to become a company with strong financial products,” says Ms Jha.

After several discussions in which both management consultants, KPMG and Ernst & Young advised a full-fledged entry to the financial services sector, Ms Jha went ahead with the plan.

“While we are not in the same league as Kotak Mahindra, we have certainly made a place for ourselves,” says Ms Jha. Today, Walchand Capital is a category one merchant banker and deals in corporate financing.

However, not being in the topmost league was not a comfortable feeling for Ms Jha and hence she decided to make a move into the internet business too. Moneypickle.com was launched as a personal finance portal about 11 months back, and it complements the offline financial services activities of Walchand Capital. While Moneypickle sources transactions, they are completed offline.

Ms Jha also launched Cricketnext.com, a portal on cricket along with her husband Mr Sanjay Jha. This has been awarded as the best sports website award. Cricketnext.com has an online shop, which offers Indian products at Indian prices. The portal has even got enquiries from cricket gear manufacturers across the globe to market their products through this shop. “We expect to breakeven with Cricketnext.com in the next 18 months,” says Ms Jha. Four months back Ms Jha also launched an entertainment portal 3to6.com.

That is not the only activity that she is planning on the net. “ We intend to make our internet business a platform to offer training,” says Ms Jha. With the financial markets going through major changes, she feels, there is a dearth of qualified professionals who really understand the new products and this is the opportunity Moneypickle will capitalise on. Moneypickle is in talks with a few financial institutions in the US to create a knowledge bank. “We intend to provide online information as well as customised programmes for corporates and banks through Walchand Capital. “We want to be a comprehensive knowledge bank catering to students as well as senior management staff,” says Ms Jha.

“We are not too worried about the dotcom businesses going bust. Like in the financial markets, a cleansing is taking place where players with tangible products and services will survive,” says Ms Jha.

Today Ms Jha is also the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) chairperson for Maharashtra. “ This has given me an opportunity to make a larger contribution to industry and understand issues I am not directly involved with,” says Ms Jha. A yoga freak, a cricket and a movie buff, Ms Jha is tries to balance her family and work life. Clearly, for Ms. Jha then, the family, both the business and the personal one-beckons.