Titles do not bother her. Tags do not define her. Alpha Woman, Ice Queen, Holy Mother …they throw it at her and she takes it all on the chin. With a smile and a shrug, she races along the highway of life — learning, teaching, sharing, and then learning some more.
But when she walked up to the dais to receive IIMB’s Distinguished Alumni Award 2013 on October 28, 2013, Malavika Harita had eyes and ears for only one person. Mrs. Leela Ramanathan, her 86-year-old mother, who demanded to be at the event to applaud the acknowledgment of her daughter’s sterling achievements.
“My mother is my role model. She is my rock. She’s a fantastic woman and she’s been there for me every step of the way. In fact we even ran a business together when I was nineteen,” says Malavika, softly. Clearly, the roles have been reversed now. Malavika fusses over her mother’s food and rest and she worries about her growing frailty, but the feisty mom will have none of it. “Go on,” she says, firmly, “Stop talking about me! It’s your day.”
Indeed, it is Malavika’s day in the sun. She has an illustrious career as an advertising professional. She founded Saatchi & Saatchi Focus Network in India 15 years ago and has since held various leadership positions across verticals. She has over 30 years of experience in communication, advertising, branding and entrepreneurship. Passionate about the power of communication and technology she works on brands like Bosch, Coats, Reliance Polymers, Infosys, Microsoft, Astra Zeneca, Mead Johnson, AIS and Novo Nordisk amongst others. She also teaches Advertising and Brand Management at prestigious post graduate institutes of management and communication in India. She was one of the first Gurukul Chevening Scholars, selected by the British Government for a special program under Lord Meghnad Desai at the London School of Economics on Globalization. She is the President of the Advertising Club Bangalore.
The list isn’t done yet but before we get a fix on her future plans, we step back a little and enjoy the journey so far.
So Malavika ran the family business at nineteen? “I had no choice, really! My father passed away suddenly and I realized that grieving was a luxury when there was work to be done!”
Pragmatic she may sound but there is plenty of truth when she observes quietly that when stomachs have to be fed, one must just get up and get on with life. “I was lucky that I had a head for numbers. I was great at reading balance sheets and that was because my mom never ever said, ‘It’s ok if you don’t ace your Math exam’. It shocks me even today when we subject ourselves to stereotypes like ‘Girls can’t do Math’ or ‘Girls can’t handle numbers’!”
Proud of the fact that she and her brother Bhaskar were treated as equals, she says: “My dad taught me to drive and he expected me to change a flat tyre without any fuss!” The best gift her parents gave her, she says, was trust and independence. “I replicate their model of parenting with my son. And, touch wood, he’s been a fantastic child!” The child in question is now a strapping 25-year-old who is doing his Medicine while Mom is scaling new heights in her career and Grandma, a trained classical dancer, was giving lessons until two years ago. “We seem to be a family of over-achievers, na?” says Malavika with a chuckle.
Family clearly means a lot to her and though she has been a busy professional through the years, parenting is a role that she has relished and cherished. “I’ve worked hard at parenting and I think every parent should,” says the woman who deals with youngsters every day – in her office and in classrooms at TAPMI and COMMITS — schools of management and media, where she teaches advertising and brand management.
Achievement also matters a great deal because she sets high standards for herself and her team. “At Saatchi & Saatchi Focus, every individual is an entrepreneur, not an employee. They run their verticals like their own businesses. They invest in it and they grow it and they grow along with it.”
She firmly believes that youngsters need mentoring but they also need to be empowered. Only then will they learn to be accountable for their actions. “The problem is that today’s parents mollycoddle their children and cushion them so much that the kids grow up without common sense or creativity,” she says ruefully, confessing that it saddens her to see droves of youngsters chasing the MBA dream because that’s what their parents want for them (“hefty salaries, settled lives”) and not because they themselves have a passion for it. “No wonder, they burn out at 30!”
Of her own dream she says, her passion for numbers led her to IIMB but it was at the Institute that she discovered the power of advertising. “I fell in love with advertising and I am in love with the subject till date,” she says with a smile, adding perhaps that if advertising had not “happened” to her, she would certainly be a Professor of Finance. “I still love to read balance sheets and I still do a damn good job of it!”
