President (International Business)
Swiss Parenterals Ltd
A self-made village girl, Sindhu, could adapt to the changes and live by circumstances without seeing it as a big struggle. Giving extra time to her work, she learned the nuances of the global pharmaceutical business, the regulations of various markets, accreditations and approvals. A mathematics graduate hardly makes a mistake in calculation. Like all unsolved are dropped to take fresh ones to solve in quick replacement, she forgets unpleasant lessons and reconciles with the reality of having more opportunities to correct the wrongs. Hard work with integrity renders due outcome, if not today, surely tomorrow. Since 2010, she has been a Director, heading the global business of Swiss Parenterals, which has a portfolio of over 1000 approved dossiers on 190 molecules, including complex dosages. Good works never go unacknowledged, she says as she reflects on the miles she has travelled in her career. Her husband, Sudheer Marar, has been a motivator with an ‘all-weather’ comfort.
When Sindu boarded the train from Shoranur to Ahmedabad in September 1998, what she had in her mind was a job that was ready 1700 kilometres away from home. The sky had the parting cloud as the Onam was at the doorstep. The first day in Ahmedabad was Thiruvonam, an auspicious day. The next day, she had her first job interview at Speedage, a transport service provider, at Jetalpur, 14 kilometres away from Maninagar, where she had then put up. Her cousin took her to the interview site by now-unseen Luna bike. Travelling back home alone after the interview was a daunting task as it could naturally be for anyone who did not know the geography of the city and the local language. That experience typified the struggle a new migrant had to put up with in a city where every signboard was in Gujarati.
Sometimes, even the auspicious beginning takes the fortunate ones through testing times. Sindhu Sudheer had it but guzzled all without qualms. That was often an unavoidable part of life. She swallowed all the struggles in her determination to stand on her feet. Nothing came without pain. Her audacious “come what may” approach offsets all her fears. That emboldened her to live by circumstance. Each struggle in life taught her many good lessons. Adding to the lessons was her talent for harnessing opportunities which came her way. Her high level of integrity and equally high level of confidence make all struggles in life and challenges in her profession less of an adventure.
Sindhu, the eldest of the two siblings, had only a faint memory of her father. Her mother, a housewife, had two children. Yet, her life was not hard because of the joint family atmosphere. The maternal home had other members to look after them with compassion. But Sindhu had in mind a goal of making herself financially independent by finding a good job at the earliest. “That goal was rooted deeply in my mind since my college days,” she reminisces. She did a BSc in Mathematics from Lakshmi Narayana College, Palakkad. After graduation, she joined MSc with an interim role as a mathematics tutor in a private coaching class. However, she preferred a job over her plan to get an immediate postgraduate degree. Learning was possible while earning, she rightly realised.
Like others in a typical Kerala village, Sindhu also would have been destined to land, somehow, in a school as a teacher after B Ed. But she opted for the opportunity to fill in the vacancy her friend left behind in an unfamiliar and faraway city. She joined the erstwhile Speedage Express Cargo and worked there for seven months as a document assistant. In the initial days, she stayed close to her office along with four other girls. Later, having the wherewithal to sustain herself, she moved into an independent home to bring her mother to stay with after the death of her grandmother, which made her mother feel lonely.
Before moving to Cadila Pharmaceuticals at the fag end of 1999, she worked for seven months at Revlon Pharma. Her experience at Cadila was memorable, with remarkable exposure to corporate working culture and familiarity with sophisticated systems and operations. In Cadila, she worked in the international business division. That enabled her to understand the nitty-gritty of international trades and transactions and gain knowledge of the foreign market for Indian pharmaceutical products and regulations in various markets. While working in Cadila, she cleared the Common Admission Test (CAT) and set for IIM-Bangalore. Her mother did not want her to move down to Bangalore but to settle down in life at the earliest. Mother feared higher education with a professional degree from a premium institute would delay Sindhu’s marriage. Her destiny lay elsewhere. Sudheer met Sindhu through another colleague. Next year, she married Sudheer Marar, a colleague at Cadila.
Often, private employment is a big challenge for girls after marriage and having children. The denting family income made Sindhu and Sudheer think of a job for both, which would help them address the challenge of raising the child and family income. “It becomes a bigger challenge when you nurse a bigger dream in life,” says Sudheer. Ahmedabad is a city with unlimited opportunities. Everyone unwilling to run away from struggles thrives in the city. “We were not ready to give up. We nursed the dream of sending our son to the best school in Ahmedabad, owning a luxury apartment, a car and a good bank balance. We worked with the goal in mind and set ourselves a deadline. With exciting ups and heart-breaking downs we moved up to consolidate our position,” Sudheer recalls. Saurav, born in 2002, was one year old when Sindhu and Sudheer moved into their dream home. They also dreamed of their son getting educated at the best possible institution. Saurav is currently doing his graduation in management from London with an internship in the US and aiming to be an investment banker. Things could be smooth only when couples work hard, especially when a new home is a liability. That was the only way to have a decent life, they felt.
Sindhu wanted a new job. In the search for one, she got call letters from Swiss Parenterals and Arvind Mills. She had the option to choose from the two. Nevertheless, she preferred a job with flexible time and ambitious childcare. At the interview, she placed her necessities of time flexibility. The management of Swiss Parenterals was kind to her. Though the salary was less than what she drew from her earlier employment she joined the company on the merit of the management considering her concern for child care. In 2003, she joined Swiss, then a small company understandably with huge growth potential. For fledgling workers like Sindhu, a small company with an accommodative attitude was a good place to work. Her experience in Cadila was handy in her new job at the company that was yet to be on the track to take off. “I preferred to join the company because of its compassionate management culture and principle of rewarding those who deserved the reward,” she recalls. “I always admire the management for such a caring nature. Reciprocally, that made me work extra time for the growth of the company. I saw the company growing consistently. Today I am happy that I serve one of the fastest growing mid-size companies with a large space for further growth,” she avers.
Sweet and sour days came and went. Sindu- Sudheer had ups and downs. With the inherent conciliatory nature that both of them had, the erratic fortune they went through never led to an exchange of blame. That showed the admirable degree of their mutual understanding. That way, the couple stands up to be a learnable lesson for the new generation. Sindhu stood with him and convinced him to drop all losses from accounting. The art of forgetting losses kept her spirit high. This is a family policy, says Sudheer who also supports Sindhu to do her best. That is life, she realises. Struggles and failures are not extraordinary experiences in life. “We have to be resilient to all these and realise that one will have nobody around when he or she is in a debt trap. We have learned these lessons and managed to forget all the unpleasant memories,” says Sudheer. The couple approached all these with composure without dropping their dream of building a successful corporate profession on the wayside. Sindhu, with Sudheer standing beside her in all her career growth, continued to work hard for the company’s business growth. Sindhu, as President, heading international business, visited 70 countries for business expansion. She regularly visits customers in the home market.
Determinations hush all disappointments. A hard worker, that she has always been, deserves to live with a big dream and is sure to win it. She never regrets a loss but learns to forget and forgive it so that a fresh start can help her regain the loss. She shares the same principle with her husband, Sudheer, a hard-working entrepreneur driven by workable dreams. Forget about losses with a caution never to repeat and think about another opportunity to compensate for the loss and drive into the dream. That is the tenet we commonly share,” Sudheer says.
Sudheer was also working in Cadila. He met Sindhu through a colleague, who found them a good match. Sudheer was keen to marry only an employed girl. A financially comfortable life in cities is tough for families if only one member earns. The family of Sudheer, originally from Thrissur and Sindhu neighbouring Palakkad, arranged the marriage and solemnised on 8th November 2000 at Guruvayoor Temple.
Six years after joining the company, she became a director on the board of Swiss Parenterals, a manufacturer of generic and speciality sterile dosage forms for various indications, and, as an Executive Director heading the global business with a footprint in 80 countries, she feels more humbled. As an employee, she serves with dedication wherever she lands and works with the same pain of raising her son for better results. At the time, she is an executive and becomes an accommodative family person with an understanding of the concerns of her spouse and relatives.
Once you are open to working hard with determination, everything you have dreamed of will fall in your line. “Work hard and hard, and one day you will reach where you have dreamed, my experience taught me this truth. The dream I wrote in my diary never went off the beam because of my focused work, untiring from any disappointment and aberration,” Sudhir recalls.
