BANGALORE TO BALLARAT: INDIAN BILLIONAIRE REMINISCES ABOUT AUSTRALIAN BREWING DAYS

1. BANGALORE TO BALLARAT:
INDIAN BILLIONAIRE REMINISCES ABOUT AUSTRALIAN BREWING DAYS
By Margaret Burin, March 5, 2015
ABC Ballarat
A former Ballarat student of brewing turned Indian biotechnology pioneer, Kiran
Mazumdar-Shaw has revisited her regional Victorian classroom 40 years after being
the only woman to graduate in her class.
The sign on the main road into Ballarat read 'Population: 60,106'.
It was 1974, and a young Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw had come to study master brewing
at the Ballarat School of Mines and Industry.
"They'd almost got [the population] exactly to the last person and I remember adding
one to it because I'd just entered," she said.
"It was a very memorable time from me - I had come as a young student, the first
time away from home in India."
Ms Mazumdar-Shaw's father was heavily involved in the beer brewing industry back
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2. in India.
"It was my father's persuasion that made me come and study brewing in Australia
because he used to send a lot of his young brewers to the brewing school in
Ballarat," she said.
She recalls questioning whether it was the right occupation for a young woman to
pursue.
"He said 'why not, I don't think you should make it such a gender issue'," she said.
It turned out her father was a man ahead of his times.
After working at several breweries including Carlton and United Breweries in
Melbourne, she returned to India as the country's first female brew master.
However it was not in the field of beer crafting that Ms Mazumdar-Shaw built her
fortune.
A strong gender bias made it difficult to begin a career in the industry.
"I don't think they were willing to entrust any brewing responsibilities to a woman - I
was told so in so many words," she said.
"I found it very difficult to be employed in any Indian breweries."
Today instead of using yeast to make beer, she uses it to make insulin.
After being offered a brewing job in Scotland, she was offered an opportunity to
partner a biotechnology company based in Bangalore.
The managing director of Biocon, a biopharmaceutical company, she is listed by
Forbes to have a net worth of $1.2billion, making her number 81 on the list of India's
100 richest people and the country's fourth wealthiest woman.
The first-generation entrepreneur was also named in TIME magazine's 100 most
influential people in the world in 2010.
"Obviously it's a great recognition, not because I'm wealthy but because I've created
wealth, I think to me that's more important, it's about value-creation," she said.
"I call myself an accidental entrepreneur because I never planned to be one."
Ms Mazumdar-Shaw was honoured at Federation University - formerly the Ballarat
School of Mines -by having a road at its Mount Helen campus named 'Mazumbdar
Drive'.
She has also been made an ambassador of FedUni for three years.
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3. Her life in Bangalore today is a harsh contrast to her days in country Victoria.
"Today when I compare Ballarat, it's heaven because it's so quiet and there are very
few cars," she said.
"Bangalore is a bustling city of 10 million people.
"But I think Bangalore is very proud of being a city with first-generation entrepreneurs
and for me the jobs of the future are going to be created by young tech-savvy
entrepreneurs."
Beers with classmates at the local pub may now only be a distant memory, but Ms
Mazumbdar-Shaw says revisiting Ballarat has reminded her of the happy times she
had in the "charming Australian town", and the role it has played in her highly
successful career.
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