Sulajja Firodia Motwani

Joint Managing Director of Kinetic Engineering

Ltd, she is the in charge of the Company's overall
business developmental activities. She is also very
well performing the role of the Director of Kinetic
Motor Company Limited and Kinetic Marketing
Services Limited. Well, we are talking about
Sulajja Firodia Motwani. In this article, we will
provide you with the biography of Sulajja Firodia
Motwani, who has made an incredible contribution
in making the firm reach heights of success.

She is a fitness person, who is very conscious about

her health. She is very particular about carrying out
one or the other activity for keeping fit and active.
She has always been enthusiastic about sports,
especially badminton. She has played badminton on
the national level. She is also very fond of pursuing adventurous sports like skiing &
scuba diving. She tries to spend as much time as possible with her five year old son
Sidhant. Read on to know the complete life history of Sulajja Firodia Motwani.

Prior to joining Kinetic Company, Sulajja worked for a period of four years with a well
known investment analytics company, BARRA International, based in California. She
has been an active participant in setting the operations of the company in India.
Throughout her studies, she has been a rank holder. She has always cleared exams with
merit. Her name appeared in the toppers list in the SSC examinations and HSC
examinations. She graduated from the Pune University. Thereafter, she went to the
United States for pursuing further studies. She is an MBA degree holder from the reputed
Carnegie Mellon University at Pittsburgh.

She is an epitome of boldness and courage. With her strong determination and courage,
she has been able to establish a niche for the firm in the business world. The Company
has witnessed tremendous expansion during her tenure. From being a mere moped
manufacturer, today, it has set its foothold in the industry as a manufacturer offering a
complete range of two wheelers right from mopeds, scooters to motorcycles.
This major transformation can be attributed to the new competitive business strategy that
the Company has adopted, which is driven by the market and customers. Kinetic
Company has been constantly coming up with new models to cater to all segments of the
society. Sulajja has been instrumental in designing and implementing the marketing
strategies of the Company. In the recent times, Kinetic has collaborated with the well
known Italian company, Italjet Moto. This acquisition has given full rights to the Kinetic
Company to launch seven new scooter models in the country.

Kinetic is also working in partnership with Hyosung Motors of South Korea. This major
collaboration has led to the launching of the most popular Kinetic Aquila and Comet.
These motorcycles are very much in demand. Sulajja has played an active role in plotting
the course of action for the Kinetic Company. For her great job, she has received many
accolades. She has been called upon to deliver speech in a number of public forums.

"India Today", a well known magazine honored her by presenting her with the title of
business "Face of the Millennium". It ranked her among the top twenty five business
entrepreneurs of the country. She was presented with the Society Young Achiever's
Award for Business in the year 2002. The same year, she was chosen as the "Global
Leader of Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum. In the year 2003, the Institute of
Marketing and Management bestowed her with the award for excellent performance as
the woman CEO. She also received the Young Super Achiever Award from the leading
magazine "Business Today" in 2003.

Sulajja Firodia Motwani (born August 26, 1970) belongs to a business family, the grand-
daughter of H.K Firodia who founded Kinetic Engineering. Her father Arun Firodia founded the
Kintetic Group. She is her parent’s second child. She has two sisters, Kimaya, her elder sister,
is in the US , Vismaya, her younger sister is, an engineer, is in charge of exports and public
relations of the Group and Ajukya, her brother, who works in the US.

She is the Joint Managing Director of Kinetic Engineering Ltd and Director, Kinetic Motors. Her
husband, Manish Motwani, is the Managing Director of Kinetic Communications Ltd. They have
a son Sidhant. She is multi-lingual with fluency in Marathi, Hindi, Rajasthani, French and
English, with smattering Sindhi.

Education & Career of Sulajja Firodia Motwani

Sulajja Firodia Motwani completed the B.Com from Pune University (1990). On completing her
MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg in 1992, she joined Barra International,
California, an investment consulting firm in the US (1992-94). She became the Senior
Consultant, BARRA (1994-97), Head of Indian Operations, BARRA (1996-97 and moved on to
her family business to become General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Kinetic Engineering Limited
(1997).

The Kinetic group’s Kinetic Motor Company manufactures and sells scooters and scooterettes,
and Kinetic Engineering Company makes motorcycles and mopeds. She later became Joint
Managing Director, KEL (1998-till date)
Important Works of Sulajja Firodia Motwani
The group’s joint venture with Honda Motor Company fell through in 1998 making Kinetic
Honda to Kinetic Motors which later went into a technical tied up with UEN, a Taiwanese
company, and Hyosung Motors, Korea increasing its product and price range. During this
period the company increased its annual sales to 19,000 vehicles in July 2002 set to achieve a
target of 26,000.

Awards and Achievements of Sulajja Firodia Motwani

Sulajja Firodia Motwani won a number of awards such as the award for excellent performance
as the woman CEO by the Institute of Marketing and Management (2003); Young Super
Achiever Award from the leading magazine ‘Business Today’ (2003); Society Young Achiever's
Award for Business in the year 2002; Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic
Forum (2002); and ‘Face of the Millennium’ by ‘India Today’.

INTERVIEW

Sulajja Motwani shares her experience while turning around Kinetic Engineering and the
challenges she had to face in the process. She shares her perspective on women in top
management and the challenges faced in. She shares her experience in managing and
leading an appropriate work-life balance, and also advocates the learning insights to
fellow women managers. Sulajja also narrates her active participation in the corporate
social responsibility.

Profile of Sulajja Firodia Motwani:

Sulajja Motwani also a Director of Kinetic Motor Company Limited and Kinetic
Marketing Services Limited. She is responsible for the group’s overall business strategy,
sales and marketing, and business development activities.

Sulajja Motwani has received numerous awards for her achievements and has been
invited to speak at a large number of forums. She was featured as a business “Face of the
Millennium” by leading magazine India Today; and was voted among the top 25 business
leaders of the next century in a poll of industrialists conducted by Fortune India. Sulajja
was also awarded the Society Young Achiever’s Award for Business for the year 2002
and won the 2003 award for excellence as a top woman CEO from the Institute of
Marketing and Management. She has won the Young Super Achiever Award by Business
Today for year 2003. Most notably, she was selected by the World Economic Forum as a
“Global Leader of Tomorrow” in 2002.
Q. You joined Kinetic Engineering at a time when it was struggling. It has come a long
way since then. What major challenges did you face during the journey?

A. When I joined Kinetic, our options were severely restricted due to our JV agreement
with Honda Motor. We were prohibited from manufacturing anything except mopeds.
Our board of directors felt that Honda, who at that point held a majority stake in the JV
Kinetic–Honda, was not making efforts to put the JV company on the road to growth.
Since 15 years, only one model had been introduced and there were no initiatives to
expand the portfolio or to put in any upgrades or customizations to make it suitable for
India. The fuel efficiency was a concern, as was the price tag, which was high, and
constantly fluctuating owing to high import levels in the vehicle and a fluctuating yen.

The first challenge was to buyout the Honda stake and put Kinetic on a road to
independence.

The second was to build R&D skills and to demonstrate our indigenous product
development capability and put together a sound product portfolio that addressed major
segments in the two-wheeler industry.

We did very well on both counts, and are proud of what we have accomplished in a short
timeframe. The ongoing challenge is to survive and win in a highly competitive
marketplace. The ultimate goal is to carve out Kinetic’s rightful place in the domestic
market and also to make significant strides in the global two-wheeler market.

Q. What factors do you attribute to the success of Kinetic Engineering? What has been
your role in the success?

A. Kinetic is one of India’s oldest and most established companies, founded in 1974 and
without any exaggeration, has brought to the Indian people brands and products that
changed the way people lived their lives—the Luna moped and the Kinetic scooter has
put tens of lakhs of Indians on the roads. It was founded by my grandfather and father,
with the dream that the common man/woman of India should benefit in a fundamental
way and that dream has been fulfilled. I would say that Kinetic’s strength lies in its
inherent strong engineering skills and solid infrastructure at plants, R&D, tool room, etc.
I would give full credit for the company’s achievements to our Chairman Arun Firodia
and our entire team of management and workers. My personal goal has been to inculcate
a spirit of professionalism and aggression in the company and in our dealers. I have
worked hard to build and sustain key relationships—with dealers and other business
partners and associates.
Q. Recently LML announced plans to launch a four stroke scooter. Hero Honda has also
announced the launch of a scooter by the year end. Bajaj is modifying its earlier models.
The scooter market is becoming highly competitive. Do you think you are competitively
positioned to take on the competition?

A. We are armed with a very strong range of scooters, the currently available Nova 135
and Zing 80 and a to-be-launched revolutionary range of Italian designed scooters.

I am personally excited about this range, comprising seven remarkable designs that cover
a gamut of designs from vintage retro to classic to motoscooters to maxiscooters; and
experts in the two-wheeler industry share my enthusiasm. We acquired the seven
bestselling scooters from “Italjet”, an Italian two-wheeler company renowned for its
incredible designs—the scooters were acquired in terms of production set-ups and all
rights in India as well as globally; and are far superior to anything currently available or
slated for launch by anyone else. With this, I think we would be in a uniquely strong
position and I have heard that the competition is quite worried.

Q. Kinetic is the only Indian company that offers a full range of two-wheelers including
mopeds, scooters, scooterettes and motorcycles. What is the rationale behind this
strategy?

A. The dream has been to have a Kinetic vehicle parked in every household in India. Of
course, everyone has different transportation needs and we want to have something to
cater to everyone’s requirements.

Q. What are the challenges of being a woman in top management? Do you feel women
have a disadvantage over men as far as business management is concerned in India?

A. I have had a very positive experience, and never felt any kind of a bias as a woman.
Our business is very complex and I interact with a pretty diverse group of people— from
internal management, various agencies, dealers, press, etc., and honestly, everyone’s
always responded very well to me. I think women should think of themselves as
“professionals” who are there to do a certain job and as any professional they should
focus on doing a good job. Beyond that if anyone has a problem with me being a woman
then frankly it’s their problem, not mine; I have far more important things to think about;
especially since there’s nothing I can do about it, so what’s the point in pondering over
it?

Q. You are a wife, a daughter, a daughter-in-law and a mother of a four-year-old child.

How do you manage the work-life balance?

A. Juggling the role of an executive with that of a wife and a daughter, daughter-in-law
has not been a problem. It becomes more difficult as a mother since just leaving your
baby in the morning and going to work requires so much willpower. But I am so blessed
that I have an incredible support system—my husband, my mother, my in-laws are all a
pillar of strength for me; and my four-year-old son, Sidhant, has always been really
wonderful. I give full credit to him for me being able to pursue my interests, but I do
make it a point to be there for things important to him—his friends’ birthday parties,
school PTA meetings, etc. Though I cannot really confirm that I have achieved a “work-
life balance”, I list my priorities as work, fitness and motherhood (not ranked in any
order) and everything else is optional.

Q. How does Kinetic ensure work-life balance for its employees?

A. We have good policies, especially with holidays and vacations and we organize meals,
transport and other activities like service camps for vehicles, health checkups, eye
checkups, courses on art of living, medical advice, etc. We also help out with school,
college admissions, assistance in emergencies, legal help, computer education and career
counseling for employees’ children, special loans, etc. But we remain an organization
that counts work above leisure and our team is very hard working, including our
Chairman who is, every day, the first to arrive and the last to leave!

Q. You have been felicitated with many awards. How does it feel? Does it add more
responsibility to the way you conduct business? What are Kinetic’s corporate social
responsibility initiatives?

A. Awards are good to get, as it means someone recognizes that you have been working
hard and doing your best. They do make me feel like I must do more to live up to the
good things people are saying about me! We do a variety of CSR:

• Our family has been a family of freedom fighters. My grandmother was a freedom
fighter herself. As such, serving the nation has been our family’s goal for generations.
My father (Kinetic Chairman, Arun Firodia) remembers assisting his mother in running
adult literacy classes for the illiterate watchmen working in a state government factory
where his father was Works Manager. My grandfather gave additional increments to
those who passed literacy examinations and promotion to those who achieved
proficiency. My father has traveled with Acharya Vinoba Bhave on his “Padayatra” and
such experiences made deep impact on him.

• We run a project called “Swapnabhoomi” in Parbhani District of Maharashtra where a

cluster of 150 villages has been adopted by us and is provided inputs for sanitation,
literacy, vocational guidance, water conservation, irrigation, women’s empowerment,
village industries, etc. These villages can aspire to be called “ideal” villages.

• In addition, we run a special program for rehabilitation of leprosy afflicted persons by

way of curing, caring, training and providing gainful rehabilitation. We have sustained
this program for over 15 years, which is indicative of the company’s commitment and
focused approach to the cause of empowerment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients.
FICCI has given us the “FICCI award for empowerment of physically challenged” for
our work in this area. The award was given by the Honorable President of India, APJ
Abdul Kalam. FICCI acknowledged that this work has brought about a tremendous
change in the attitude of the community as well as the family members towards the
patients.

• We have also recently achieved the NCPEDP-Shell Helen Keller Award 2004 under the
category of companies/organizations/institutions who share vision and through their
policies and practices, demonstrate their belief in equal rights and gainful employment
for persons with disabilities. This was given to us for our work in supporting a
rehabilitation and employment program for leprosy afflicted disabled individuals.

• Another initiative that we have recently started is a special alliance with Mission: Vijay
II, a foundation that assists our country’s war heroes in rehabilitation. The alliance covers
all ex-servicemen and war-wounded soldiers or their widows or families, and offers them
an opportunity for earning livelihood after they are no longer able to serve in the army or
have lost their family members. Through this alliance with Kinetic, the war wounded, ex-
servicemen and war widows are offered an opportunity to set up authorized sales and
service stations for Kinetic. These would be set up in the tehsils or villages across the
country. They will earn commission on all sales and also income from servicing of
Kinetic’s two-wheelers. Kinetic will extend all training and support required for them to
carry out this activity. The alliance has been formed on a national level, so the program is
open across the country. Kinetic has sold over 60 lakh vehicles across India, so this
program can generate sizeable income.

• In addition to these three ongoing programs, we also donate cash or assistance at times
of emergency. For example, we had donated financial assistance to Latur village when it
was devastated by an earthquake. We have also specially modified and donated scooters
to soldiers who lost their legs in the Kargil War. These scooters are modified so as to help
them get
around despite their disability.

Q. Is there someone you admire or look up to?

A. I was always very close to, and influenced by my grandfather who demonstrated his
values by the way he lived. He was patriotic and a Gandhian and had a much larger sense
of purpose than serving himself or his family alone. He always helped everyone who
asked for assistance; and was very hard working and followed a strong code of ethics.
These are the values I seek to carry forward.

Q. You are looked upon as a role model by many in India. What’s your message to
the youth and budding women managers of the country?

I am basically a hardworking person. I have worked nonstop for the last 12 years; and
before that I did well in academics as well as sports. I would say, even if it sounds
simplistic, that if you want to get somewhere, you should be prepared to put in the hard
work required and always follow an ethical course of action. Beyond a certain point, it
becomes critical to be able to build a team, to bring together a usually diverse set of
people, so you must be able to relate to a wide section of people. And you have to strike
the right balance between being humble and being aggressive.