Mukta Shah, Director, Shree Hatkeshwara Translines
It is indeed strange how, at 26, Ms. Mukta Shah has learned, unlearned and learned anew life’s various truths. Born in Pune to parents who founded a transport company in 1999, Ms. Mukta has a sister seven years younger to her. A district-level basketball player and a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, she strives for excellence.
After finishing her MBA in International Business in 2015, Ms. Mukta promptly joined the family business. She says: “As a child, I saw my father struggle in setting up the company with one milk truck which he drove himself. Seeing my parents build the company from scratch to now with more than 1,250 trucks impacted me big. I don’t remember playing with dolls as a kid. I had toy cars, trucks and trains. I never really thought of another field to join.”
Yet it was no cake-walk for her to climb up the career ladder in the company. In the three years, Ms. Mukta went from initially having no clue, no deliberate guidance from her father to learning every nuance of the work. She discloses: “For the first two months, I merely sat and stared at the computer screen. No one told me what to do. I got frustrated and one fine day I complained to my father. The first thing he said was ‘in the office, we are not father and daughter’. It then hit me that if I had to learn something, I had to create my own path. I approached the staff to give me their pending work. I realise that it was my father’s way of testing my perseverance. I also realise that this is the best way to learn the basics of any department, its challenges, schedules to follow and how to work towards solutions.”
Ms. Mukta’s acid test came when she was made in-charge of the receivables department, and everyone knew that there were some outstanding cases for more than a year. She proved her worth when she brought in all the receivables and was finally ‘accepted’ in the fold.
If today the family business has expanded to the US markets, the credit for it solely goes to Ms. Mukta. She shares: “My father was content with the company catering to the domestic market but gave me full support when I took it overseas. It was after my own initiative that we participated in the SelectUSA Investment Summit in 2016, and today we have SHCM Worldwide Inc. based in Maryland in the US. This is a trucking and logistics company hauling liquid asphalt in tankers and agricultural produce in refrigerated trailers.”
Ms. Mukta is sure that being the owner’s daughter is a disadvantage when it comes to creating a niche for herself in the company. Also the fact that a traditional transport company can still put up resistance to the active and professional presence of a woman. Ms. Mukta says: “I realised that the SOPs in our company were not clearly defined. When I started to give it a shape, there was tremendous resistance from the staff until I assured them that I was on their side.”
Acceptance did come eventually. Yet, working towards taking the business to the next level did not earn her any concession from work at home. It rather taught her much about efficient management.
Winning the runner-up title at the Mahindra Excellence Award for Lady Transport Personality 2017 got her the ultimate acceptance from the transport fraternity. She feels it’s the company’s customer care motto – ‘make the customers lazy’ that made it win the Award.
Ms. Mukta explains: “I believe that a customer calls only when there is a problem. For instance, our LPG department takes daily feedback from our customers to know their previous days’ production and accordingly we assign shipments so that they never run short of LPG which, in turn, helps them save time.”
Women executives in the transport sector need not be treated differently, but on equal terms. This is what Ms. Mukta believes in and stands by.