Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw serves as Chairman and Managing Director of India’s leading Biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. She is highly respected in the corporate world and has been recently voted by Nature Biotechnology as The Most Influential in Bio-business person outside Europe and USA.

Ms. Shaw received a graduate honours degree in Zoology from Bangalore University (1973) and qualified as a Master Brewer from Ballarat University, Australia (1975). Ms Shaw also received an honorary Doctorate of Science in 2004, from her alma mater, Ballarat University, in recognition of her pre-eminent contributions to the field of Biotechnology. She has also been awarded honarary doctorates from University of Abertay, Dundee, U.K. (2007), University of Glasgow, U.K. (2008) and Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K. (2008).

Ms Shaw chairs Karnataka’s Vision Group on Biotechnology and also served on the Board of Science Foundation, Ireland. She presently serves on the Advisory Council of the Government’s Department of Biotechnology where she has been instrumental in bringing government, industry and academia together, to chart a clear and progressive growth path for Biotechnology in India. Most recently, she has been invited to join the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry in India and the US-India CEO Forum.

Ms. Shaw is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the ET Businesswoman of the Year, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences & Healthcare, Technology Pioneer, etc. Her most cherished awards are the national awards, PADMASHRI (1989) and PADMA BHUSHAN (2005) presented to her by the President of India, for her pioneering efforts in Industrial Biotechnology.

Under her stewardship, Biocon has evolved from its inception in 1978 as an industrial enzymes company to a fully integrated Bio-pharmaceutical enterprise encompassing a well balanced business portfolio of products and services with a research focus on Diabetes, Oncology and Auto-immune disease. During this transition, Biocon has established 2 subsidiaries: Syngene (1994) to provide development support services for discovery research and Clinigene (2000) to cater to services in clinical development.

A leading US trade publication, Med Ad News, in its 2007 listings has ranked Biocon 20th amongst the leading biotechnology companies in the world and the 7th largest Biotech employer globally.