Success Story of Young Business Woman
Lakshmi Venu
The country's third-largest two-wheeler manufacturer by sales, TVS Motor has today
reached its summit of success for a 26-year old woman manager,
Lakshmi Venu, who is eventually expected to drive the $1 billion company
to its glorious future. Lakshmi Venu, daughter of industrialist Venu Srinivasan,
was elected the Vice President and director of an auto-component manufacturer company,
Sundaram Clayton Ltd, which happens to be the parent company of TVS Motors. Though
Lakshmi Venu was going to be life-partner of Rohan Murthy
who is the only son of Infosys co-founder and Chairman N.
R. Narayana Murthy though she has to go a long way to prove her managerial
skills, she has already proved herself to be brilliant in the world of academics.
Being the topper in both the school finals from Sishya School in Chennai, Lakshmi
graduated in economics from Yale and did her doctorate from the University of Warwick
in the United Kingdom. Lakshmi’s role model is her mother, Mallika Srinivasan, whose
success at the helm of the Chennai-based tractor company TAFE, a part of the Rs.
6,500-crore Amalgamations group, is well known to everyone. Lakshmi's induction
is probably less of an event within the family than it is for the media, because
many women have been involved in the group for several years. Over the last couple
of years, Lakshmi Venu’s cousins Arathi Krishna and Arundathi Krishna, daughters
of Suresh Krishna, chairman and managing director of Sundram Fasteners have joined
the company as executive director and additional director respectively. Lakshmi
is the third woman manager in the automobile industry, which of course is a less
travelled path for women - though like others, the development is familial rather
than professional. Once speaking to Business Standard she said that she was indeed
lucky to grow up with her parents. It gave her many interesting perspectives of
business world.
Being the grandson of T. V. Sundaram Iyengar, founder of the TVS Group, Srinivasan
started his career as a mechanic in the TVS garage. Lakshmi however did not start
her career from so down the ladder. For last three years, she has been working at
TVS Motor's Hosur manufacturing unit as a management trainee.
She was made to travel from Bangalore to Hosur, to understand the nitty-gritty of
the automobile business. Back in the corporate office she was trained in management
and finance.
Young Business Woman has to face a huge challenge
ahead to make TVS Motors the number one two-wheeler company in India, which is at
the third position today with Hero Honda and Bajaj Auto occupying the first two
slots. However, TVS Motors is the first two-wheeler company in India to set up a
Greenfield project abroad by setting up a plant in Indonesia.
In the days to come, Lakhmi Venu will have to prove her mettle by making TVS Motors
climb up the ranking. Needless to say, this will give her professional career an
extra edge.
