New and improved:Tanya Dubash

Tanya Dubash ,
42, Executive Director & President, Marketing, Godrej Group
(New on BT's Most Powerful list)

Back in 2007, the family that runs the Rs 12,000-crore Godrej group realised that they were facing a problem. The 113-year-old business house received feedback that Gen-Y was no longer identifying itself with the Godrej brand name.

If they did, that association was restricted to traditional products like locks and cupboards. As Godrej group Chairman Adi Godrej told BT in a recent interview: "We got reactions like 'It's my parents' brand', 'It's my grandparents' brand.'"

Tanya Dubash, Adi Godrej's eldest daughter and Executive Director & President, Marketing, for the group, was given the task of fixing that perception. Three years down the line, the group has a vibrant new logo and, according to Dubash, the Godrej portfolio of products has gained market share across audited categories by at least 10 per cent. It was a litmus test for 42-year-old Tanya, who had started off in the family business way back in 1993 as a brand manager with Godrej Soaps.

Biggest achievement in 2010: Connecting to a new set of customers as businesses like realty, modern retail have gathered steam Being a powerful woman is important because: It's not important Tip for work-life balance: Have a happy family life A workplace without women is like: A family without a mother

Much further back, she recalls weekend visits to the Vikhroli campus as a six-year-old. "But that had little to do with the family business. It was more to enjoy the beauty of the campus," says Dubash. "When you come from a family business, you are surrounded by talk of business. It was more than just work."

Tanya handles the group's marketing initiatives and also heads the marketing council, which comprises the heads of marketing of all group companies. It's a role the Harvard Business School alumnus seems to relish. "I enjoy communicating," says Dubash, adding that "taking hard people decisions" is still something she is not comfortable with. The Godrejs, including Dubash, won't talk about succession plans but insiders say that she will have a key role to play once patriarch Adi Godrej hangs up his boots.

Still, if not a full-time businesswoman, what would Tanya like to be? "Hypothetically, I would have liked to be a psychologist or… a teacher."


-T.V. Mahalingam

The 30 Most Powerful Women
1.Schauna Chauhan 2.Zarin Daruwala 3.Lynn de Souza 4.Tanya Dubash 5.Shyamala Gopinath 6.Vinita Gupta 7.Kaku Nakhate 8.Vedika Bhandarkar 9.Manisha Girotra 10.Lalita Gupte 11.Usha Narayanan 12.Akhila Srinivasan 13.Leena Nair 14.Vinita Bali 15.Chanda Kochhar	16.Roopa Kudva 17.Naina Lal Kidwai 18.Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw 19.Zarina Mehta 20.Zia Mody 21.Kalpana Morparia 22.Vishakha Mulye 23.Swati Piramal 24.Meher Pudumjee 25.Madhabi Puri Buch 26.Chitra Ramkrishna 27.Preetha Reddy 28.Shikha Sharma 29.Mallika Srinivasan 30.Sangeeta Talwar