Never Give Up On Your Dreams: Brahmani Nara, ED Heritage Foods
Brahmani Nara, Executive Director of Heritage Foods Ltd. leads a food group from the front. She belongs to one of the strongest political families of India. Brahmani exclusively shares her view on a range of issues related to women in trade and how they may overcome the barriers, the excerpts.
How was the experience of handling leadership in agriculture/food industry?
It’s been really challenging to lead the business in food and agriculture, Heritage Foods Limited (HFL), a leading dairy company in India. It was started with the vision of delighting every home with fresh & healthy products along with empowerment of farmer. With 25 years of existence in the industry, we can safely say that we have stayed true to our vision as the company believes in empowering farmers as integral to their business.
My association with Heritage Foods has been quite enriching. However, in today’s environment, Heritage plays a much larger role of enabling dairy farming with a variety of programs like free veterinary care, by subsidising feed, mitigating risk through insurance policies (Farmer & Cattle) and by providing credit. The company has also established mobile vet clinics who enlighten the farmers about good milk practices through various video programmes. I am very fortunate to be part of this whole journey.
I have been personally visiting our milk farmers to understand their requirements and catering to their needs accordingly. Our focus would continue to be farmer empowerment and how we are going to make their lives better day by day, through this we stay to our brand promise of ‘Health and Happiness’ to all our consumer through our fresh milk.
How do you look at the professional journey so far?
I have got good exposure at Stanford, have done a couple of internships with Venture Capital firms and leading dairy companies, which has really helped me to bring in lots of visible changes in our organisation. Besides our family’s culture to think big and be the best at what we are doing has inspired me.
In my initial days here, I spent a lot of time on the field, for instance, travelling to procurement centres, processing facilities and meeting farmers, this has really helped me to understand the business from the grass root level.
We have completed 25 years during the current year, expanded our business in the northern markets and have carved a niche for ourselves in the northern markets, diversified our business portfolio and have ventured into flavoured milk business and have recently signed a Joint Venture with a France based company ‘Novandie’ for expanding our value-added products basket.
Any target in quantitative terms?
We are looking forward to achieving Heritage’s vision of becoming Rs. 6000 crore group by 2022, by expanding our value-added products basket and from current and new geographies.
How do you rate India as a nation for women working professionals?
India has experienced rapid growth and development in the past years in many spheres. I can observe that women are slowly but steadily making a progress in their work life. They are exploring different work fields and are walking hand in hand with their male counterparts. On the other hand, there is a scenario, where women even after completing their education, they are not exactly encouraged to work outside their homes as that is meant only for men.
Importance of family, your views?
Support of family plays a major role in women to take up any role and to be successful in the long run. Rest everything is same for both men and women. The recent introduction of mandatory women director on the Board of the companies is an encouraging step by the Government of India, which has really given entry for women into Boardrooms of the corporates in India. Women really bring in a good balance in thinking and decision making for any organisation.
The gender bias is still there, but visible changes are seen in the last couple of years. There is still lot more change that is needed in the perception of the society.
What is your personal advice for budding women professionals in India?
Never give up on your dreams. It’s easy to give in to feelings of self-doubt and back down from challenges. But that’s certainly not what being a strong woman all is about. Whatever you do it should be different.
Never be afraid to take up challenging tasks and getting into unknown territories. There will be times when you will have to obey all the rules and miss the fun. All that really matters is the success and the achievement that you have achieved through your sheer determination and persuasion.
