The CBFW conference

I had the good fortune of attending the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women’s first ever conference at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai yesterday. The conference was attended by a host of India’s women intelligentsia. Hosted on the theme “Women mean business”, the daylong conference was one of the most inspiring events I have attended.

I would like to apologise for making this write-up rather long, but I think it would be a sin to not spread the message after attending such an amazing conference and listening to some of the most proficient women leaders.

The CBFW conference – 11th January

The speakers of the day were:
• Cherie Blair, former First Lady of the United Kingdom, founder – CBFW.
• Barkha Dutt, Group Editor - English News, NDTV 24x7
• Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank
• Vaghul Narayanan, Former Chairman of the Board, ICICI Bank Ltd
• Subroto Bagchi, Co-founder, Mind Tree Consulting
• Zia Mody Senior Partner, AZB Partners
• Gita Patel Director and Co-founder, Stargate Capital
• Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon Ltd
• Dr.Dishan Kamdar Associate Dean (Academic Programmes), Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
• Prakash Hinduja Chairman of Hinduja Group (Europe)
• Shabana Azmi Film Actress, Social Activist and former Rajya Sabha Member
• Sangita Myska BBC News Correspondent
• Zain Verjee Co-anchor of CNN Today and World News
• Naina Lal Kidwai Group General Manager and Country Head of HSBC, India
• Ritu Kumar, Designer
• Indu Shahani – Mumbai Sherriff
• Mrs.Vandana Luthra Founder & Mentor, VLCC Group and many more

The event started with an introductory speech by Ms. Indu Shahani, Sherriff of Mumbai who told us the inspiring story behind the 1298 ambulance service in Mumbai. “Soon after I became Sherriff, I wanted to introduce a Life Support Ambulance Service and into my office walked three young women – all well educated in the US, who could have landed in plum jobs in MNCs. They wanted to run the helpline and thus started 1298 – as a cross subsidy for profit ambulance service, which is a huge success story now. Social entrepreneurship is often misconstrued as being philanthropic and not-for –profit”, she said.

Conversation: Triumphs, tribulations and challenges on the way to the top
Next, we had an interesting session with Barkha Dutt as our moderator and Chanda Kocchar, Cherie Blair as the panellists. We got to know a lot of astounding facts about Cherie Blair in this discussion. She is the only first lady to have delivered a baby during her stay at 10 Downing Street and still managed to carry on her individual profession as a barrister. She mentioned how no one was willing to accept her as a barrister after she passed out top of her batch in law school. Even before she became first lady, she was active as a barrister and never took much maternity leave, juggling work and family. Cherie comes from a humble background, her mother was abandoned by her husband and it was through pure hard work and determination that Cherie established herself as a lawyer. The media mocked her for not being the typical first lady, but Cherie stuck to her career and even cooked meals for the family. “This is where I feel women in the West are not as lucky as their Indian counterparts in India who have other women in the family to help them in cooking. It is very important that the mother cooks for her children – nutrition for the family is very important and you have to have meals together”, she said. When Barkha asked Chanda Kocchar why only very few women make it up the ladder explained how she never looked at employees as male or female. “It’s just individuals and leaders, but the problem is women quit when they reach their thirties – may be they don’t stick around that long – most organizations have a lot of women employees at the entry level, but not many in the higher echelons. Organizations should become gender neutral and my organization especially does not distinguish between men and women. Prioritise, make your own choice, do things your own way”, she said.

Keynote Address - Vaghul Narayanan – Former Chairman of the board, ICICI
Mr. Narayanan is one person who has strived for retaining women at ICICI – he brought about the flexi maternity leave and even facilitated transfers for them “When a child cries, it relies on the mother to feed it. When the mother hears the baby cry, there is a commitment on her part to feed the child. It is this reliability and commitment that a woman brings to an organization. Women more often than men think using their right brain – bringing in creativity and their instinctive decision making skills into the organization”, he said.

Panel discussion on Entrepreneurship
This very engaging session had Subroto Bagchi, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Zia Mody and Gita Patel.
Mr. Bagchi, the moderator, started off with mentioning the men behind the successful women panellists. Kiran Mazumdar’s father refused to get her a management quota seat after she missed a merit seat by a few marks. She had trained to be a brew master, but when she did not get to be one, she decided to be an entrepreneur. Tying up with a Biotech entrepreneur from Ireland and started out with a office, investing Rs. 10,000 she had with her. “People did not want to work for me”, she said, “They did not want to work for a lady who promised to have a tie-up with in Irish company, but had an office in a garage. Access to capital was my biggest problem. But the three things I did right were 1. I did not give up, 2. I was very persistent about my desires 3. I gave a message of seriousness to those whom I was involved with. ” On giving a piece of advice for upcoming entrepreneurs, she said “Social entrepreneurship can be a very profitable business. Reaching out to rural markets and engaging the economy, microcredit and finance are great business prospects”.
Zia Mody lost out to her father Soli Sorabjee in her first ever case and then resolved to fight it out among men. “As an entrepreneur, you have to be dominant in your skill set. When I walk into a room, I have to be confident that I am better read than the group. Only preparation helps me face counterparts. Be mentally very strong and lead from the front. Women are generally more diffident and tend to cluster up with women, which should be changed. There is no such thing as a work life balance as they are often one and the same. Don’t worry about the scale of your business right from the start, just be dominant when managing the 5 or 10 people around you. You don’t have to overcome the fear of failure. You need to have it so that you perform better, just don’t let it bring you down. Success is not negotiable and failure is not an option. There is no lady luck without hard work. Luck, is being prepared when opportunity comes your way. ”
Mr. Bagchi in his concluding remarks said, “Failure is just one great idea that did not work . Move on. If you do not fail, you are not taking risks, which can be an even bigger failure. If you fail the same way twice, you are an idiot. When you fail, fail brilliantly. Let the world stand up and say “Wow, how did that fail”. Don’t look at yourself any differently because you are a woman. When you are funding your venture, don’t take any easy money. If I had the option of borrowing from an angel investor or my brother in law, I would rather borrow from the angel who is more concerned about the way I spend my money. The colour and source of your money is very important.


Session on Negotiations and Bargaining Skills – Professor Dishan Kamdar of the Indian School of Business

Prof. Kamdar had the audience spell bound with his lecture on negotiations. He gave us some tips tp follow while negotiating.
• When you have two products to sell, one costly and one cheap, present the costly one first to your counterparty
• It is better to tell prospects what they stand to lose if they did not buy your product than tell them what they gain from buying your product.
• Keep the sub-conscious look open. We like people who like us and are like us. Women are generally good in creating value while men are good in claiming the value
• The stronger your alternatives, the better you are.
• Don’t fall in love with only one alternative and don’t reveal you alternatives to anyone.
• Separate the person from the problem.
• If what is offered to you is worse than the alternative you have at hand, reject the offer.
• If you have a bundle of features for your product, negotiate as a whole and don’t unbundle the features as that is what the buyer would want you to do. Stick to your price.
• What is worth something for you may not be worth the same thing for another person
• Never make two concessions in a row. That will make you look weak.
• Make the offer first without waiting for your opponent and make it aggressive.

After lunch, the next session was on “The Untrodden Path: Unconventional Career Choices”
The panellists were Kiran Bedi, Vandana Luthra, Ritu Kumar and Raj Loomba. Our moderator was the extremely charismatic Zain Verjee of CNN. It was a exhilarating to hear Kiran speak. Every word that came out of her was with so much passion and energy. For the entire session and even beyond, she made us believe that we can indeed be the change we want to see. I had the chance to talk to her for a minute after the session and got her book “I dare” autographed. The winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award, “Most admired woman of India” and many other coveted titles, Kiran had absolutely no airs about her. “Prisoners had the choice of repeating crime or forgetting it - I made them forget it” she said when asked how she made prisoners take up Vippasana. We asked her how she managed other male officers in the police force and ordered them when she was head. Her simple reply was “I absolutely loved it. I raised the human resource skill of the police force, involved the community, brought in NGOs to help the police. The recruitment process is corrupted nowadays and that is why we find such a big dearth of resources in the police force”. When asked why the Indian woman is forbidden by family from taking up politics or public service exams she said “It is not a matter of what the parents want. If the girl does not know what she wants, our education system is just one big failure. The girl should be where her heart is and not where her parents want her to be”. One of the most profound statements that she made during closing is this. We asked her what gives her the most satisfaction; she said “What makes me most satisfied is making optimal use of my time. It is my duty. Health and energy are our greatest gifts and we have them for a reason – to use them for the betterment of society”.

Panel Discussion - Challenges to Women entrepreneurship: Subroto Bagchi, Zain Verjee and Sangita Myska

Mr. Bagchi initiated the discussion saying “The process of ideation is the most important challenge. In forums such as these, we run the danger of over romanticizing the idea of entrepreneurship. Go step by step.” Zain Verjee has been CNN’s news correspondent and spoke about her rise from being a radio host in Africa to moving on the television. “It looks very glamorous from the outside, but the first time I interviewed Secretary Condoleeza Rice, I was very nervous. It got better with time. Bertrand Russell once said “The problem with the worl is that people who are intelligent are so full of self-doubt, while those idiotic are very confident”. Women tend to have more self-doubt than men. It is ok to make mistakes and learn from them, it is ok to be over ambitious. All that matters is to do things our own way as women”.
Sangita summarized the challenges – Fear of being ridiculed, access to capital , breaking the glass ceiling and sticking around till the idea clicked.

Commitment Speech by Kiran Bedi and Cherie Blair:

Kiran brought a wonderful close to the event. She spoke about increasing attrition in the IT industry and pointed out the huge gap in the “Care industry” – kitchen and grocery management, child care and hospitality management. There is a huge vacuum in this space. “This is one space that women can fill most efficiently and I call upon women entrepreneurs to take this up”, she concluded. She thanked Cherie Blair for putting up this first ever conference of women leaders for her foundation and generating a lot of positive ideas.
Cherie Blair promised that she would be coming back to India many more times in the future to further the causes the conference stood for. “We are mindful of the fact that all of us here have had a solid education, but there are billions of other women who do not have this opportunity”, she concluded.
In all, the event was a refreshing retreat – one that gave all of us present a sense of satisfaction and self- confidence. One that made us commit ourselves to the cause of women empowerment, one that helped get behind the psyche of some of India’s most successful women who defied all odds. I was influenced a great deal after the conference as were all the others and if we could spread the vibes and generate interest in women empowerment that would be the true success of the conference.