BALANCE IS WHAT KEEPS LIFE’S DRIVE INTERESTING. SOMETHING SULAJJA FIRODIA MOTWANI KNOWS FOR SURE
“Why don’t you send me a friend request on facebook?” she asks, matter-of-factly.
Sulajja Firodia Motwani, the vice chairperson of Kinetic Engineering Ltd (the flagship company of the $500 million Firodia Group of Companies), is everything that surprises are made of. For one, she wears her many awards and recognitions rather lightly. Two, she doesn’t look anything like the 44 years that she is. Lastly, and most importantly, she is as committed to her work as she is to her personal life, balancing both with great skill. It’s no surprise then to know that Motwani lives by the principle, “Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it that you can!”
You can’t but notice the colourful splashes she has been throwing at life’s canvas, making it the painting she wants her life to be. It’s inspirational to see her enthusiasm and her fighter’s spirit to be successful at everything she does.
It’s fascinating to unravel the many layers that make this woman what she is.
Growing up with four siblings, life, shares Motwani was anything but boring. “We are a closely-knit family and I love that we are four siblings (three sisters and a younger brother). We don’t have as many cousins since our father is the only son but we hardly miss it. There is adequate craziness and activity with the eclectic bunch of the four of us,” she says with a smile.
But with the doses of fun, there was also strict discipline, recalls Motwani. “Our parents instilled certain values in us that have stayed with us for good. For instance, love for animals was taught to us as children and we are all vegetarians. Value for education, hard work, compassion, and being down-toearth are what we have come to live by.”
Hailing from a family of freedom fighters, Motwani is proud of her grandparents, who took active part in India’s freedom struggle. Her grandfather, Late H K Firodia, is known as the doyen of the Indian automobile industry. He started the automobile and manufacturing company with the aim to industrialise India post-Independence and help in the self-reliance story India was writing.
“I come from a highly nationalistic family. As a result, Love for the country was a strong value we grew up with. Even today, when I hear the song “Ae mere watan ke logon”, I am moved and my eyes well up with tears,” she says, sharing with pride how her father has recently compiled and published a book on songs and poems dedicated to India.
However, it is her grandfather who is her ideal. A true entrepreneur at heart, he was always thinking about ways and products to bring comfort and convenience to Indians. “He was also extremely classy, yet simple and down-toearth in his approach and extremely evolved in this thinking,” she says recounting how she has met hundreds of people who tell her how her grandfather had given them their first job, their first order, a loan or some help that transformed their lives. His qualities seem to have rubbed on to Motwani as well.
A SSC and HSC topper, she went off to the US for her graduate degree and some work experience to make it big. It would have been the next logical step to stay put in the “land of opportunities”. Motwani came back, however. Like she says, “Kinetic is in my blood, I had to come back.”
That said, she loves to talk about her US stint, first at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) at Pittsburgh, and then as a consultant with a global investment technology firm, BARRA International, in California.
“My two years at CMU have been the best years of my life; I would not trade them for anything. It was the first time I was living on my own — away from a home where I had always been so protected,” she says. In the US, she had to get her own house, did her own laundry, took care of herself when sick, managed her own finances and also worked hard to excel in studies from among the top students from all over the world.
“I highly recommend all parents should send their children, especially daughters, overseas or at least away from home for their higher studies. It made me a more confident, more independent and more open-minded person,” she shares with excitement. Oh, and her graduate degree? Well, Motwani holds the distinction of being the youngest MBA student to have graduated from Carnegie Mellon.
Talking about her first job in the US, she says the four years she spent with BARRA International helped her “tremendously.”
That said, however, she couldn’t wait to come back to India. Despite the fact that she enjoyed the US experience, coming back to India and being part of Kinetic was always, like she puts it, part of her “life plan”.
“I grew up with this ambition and have always been attached to Kinetic. So it was a natural step for me to return to India after gaining valuable exposure and experience in the US,” she says, stressing how it was entirely her choice to join the family business and that there was absolutely no pressure from her family to do so.
The choice was not as simple as it might look to anyone outside a family business, however. For, despite being the boss man’s daughter, she had to do it all to win respect and camaraderie.
“It might be easier to prove yourself in a family business. But you still need to prove yourself,” says Motwani.
She took up the challenge. Be it travelling through dusty roads of rural Maharashtra to meet dealers and distributors, or sitting at the shop floor to understand the work better, there is nothing that kept this gutsy petite-looking woman from getting her hands dirty while she learnt the tricks of the trade. “I just dug in my heels and kept at it”, she says, matter-of-factly.
Little joys kept her at it. “I was lucky to own the first-ever made Kinetic Honda! This will be my most favourite bike ever. It made me feel free — like I had wings. What made it even more special was that my father had made it,” she says, suddenly sounding like an excited little girl.
It is the same enthusiasm and excitement that she brings into the business. Back in the days when Kinetic was making mopeds (remember Luna?), they sealed a joint venture deal with Honda for manufacturing scooters. Motwani’s leadership saw the group turnover grow to `1,200 crore. The Kinetic Engineering company — the group’s flagship company that sold mopeds and motorcycles saw a dramatic rise in turnover from `15 crore in 1995-96, to `150 crore in 2001-2002.
It can’t have been easy keeping up the momentum, but a marathon runner doesn’t believe in short cuts. “As we grow, it’s natural that we get further away from customers; bureaucracy creeps in, too. But for a business to grow, it is crucial to cut through the clutter and have your ear to the ground and a finger on the pulse of the market.”
Another important thing her work has taught her over the years — to adapt to change. “We live in fast world, and market dynamics are changing rapidly in the era of globalisation. Thus, it’s critical to change our strategy with the change in the environment,” she feels.
Leading from the front, Motwani has brought about a number of changes in the company. The Kinetic Group has restructured its operations significantly over the past few years. Be it the JV with Mahindra & Mahindra, which saw the company enter the motorcycles space; the Ducati JV on the auto electrical systems side; Taigene JV for automotive motors; Kinetic Communications in engineering services and electronics, and Kinetic Technologies in the area of tool design and engineering, the company is embracing change like never before.
Today, the Kinetic Group’s business interests include automotive systems and engineering, multilevel parking solutions, elevators and escalators, and green energy. Most importantly, the group is looking at opportunities to introduce new products and services under the Kinetic brand. And why not? After all, it is one of the top 100 brands in India and has strong appeal, brand recall, and acceptance as an innovative, modern, hi-technology, and trusted consumer brand.
For Kinetic, a big focus at present is on green vehicles. “I believe that alternate fuels, vehicles that run on electric and hybrid models, are a part of the answer to worrying issues such as fuel security and climate change,” says Motwani. This explains the introduction of Safarr Maxx, an electric auto and Kinetic buggy range (which includes nine to 14 seaters).
Although none of Motwani’s sisters are into the family business, her brother Ajinkya, who is the MD of Kinetic Engineering Ltd, is somebody she works closely with.
She also makes no bones about admitting how important success is to her. And this doesn’t get in the way of her personal life either. “I often say, never give up on anything or anyone that you cannot go a day without thinking about!” she says.
Motwani dotes on her son Sidhant and she says he has made her a “complete woman”. “I love to spend time with him, hear his constantly changing ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ plans,” she says with a smile.
But managing a healthy personal life while driving growth in a business empire can’t have bene easy, surely? Like she puts it, “It is easy being a working woman, easy being a working wife, too, but it’s not easy being a working mother. There is never a dull moment in the lives of mothers who balance child-rearing and a demanding profession — and that’s an understatement.”
And since multi-tasking is something most working mothers learn, Motwani also makes sure she finds time for long weekend holidays with husband and son because to her they “create fulfilling times and unforgettable memories!”
While she finds time with family, her me-time is an equal priority for Motwani. And no, for her me-time doesn’t mean settling with a book or watching a movie. It stands for adventure sports that fuel her energy. Besides her one-hour routine at the gym or doing yoga, Motwani also makes sure she finds time to indulge in her fix of adrenaline from adventure sports “From sky-diving to scuba diving, mountain biking to marathoning. It’s the adrenaline rush that gets me recharged and refreshed.”
Let the rush continue, we say!