Current Issue - Observation

Dara Khurody’s contribution to the milk industry in India and Bombay in particular is the stuff of legend. He was Bombay’s dairy development commissioner and conceived and built the Aarey Milk Colony. When the chief minister of Maharashtra asked him to give preference to cows over buffaloes in the supply of milk, he replied, "A liter of buffalo milk with 11-12% fat can be diluted to the equivalent of three liters of cow’s milk.” So, toned milk was born as "milk for the millions.” 

Nawshir, Dara’s son, recalls how the filthy and unhygienic stables in Bombay were vacated after the buffalo owners were persuaded to use new accommodation in the Aarey Milk Colony. On one particular day, traffic all over Bombay was halted for the buffaloes to walk out of their stables and proceed to the Aarey Milk Colony. Dara believed that milk was a basic human right. What Nawshir also noticed was his father’s simplicity and humility. For his father, humanity came first. 

Dara rose from humble beginnings in Mhow. Noticing his interest in the care for buffaloes and cattle, a kind neighbor financed his education and he obtained the Indian Dairy Diploma from Bangalore. Many honors were to come his way, including the Padma Bhushan and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community service. The prize money he received from the latter seeded the Khurody Dairy Education Fund which gives financial grants to rural-based students studying dairy technology at Aarey. 

Dara was always conscious of the role of a good education in economic development. Nawshir recalls his days at Welham Preparatory and the Doon School, Dehradun, followed by A levels at a UK school and study at a "crammer” that led to his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge to study for the Economics Tripos. When he graduated in 1958, much to his surprise, his father had arranged for him to work as a laborer at a shipyard in Lubeck, Germany! He wanted to drive home the importance of the dignity of labor. 

On his return to India after 1959 Nawshir served as a Tata Administrative Service (TAS) officer for most of his working career. After a stint as manager of the world’s first instant tea project in Munnar, Kerala, Nawshir returned to Bombay and was posted in Voltas. He started the international operations division to earn the foreign exchange needed to buy copper tubing for the air-conditioners. 

Nawshir quit Voltas to go to Doha, Qatar, to work for a local businessman from 1977-83. On his return, he rejoined TAS and was made president of Merck, Sharp and Dohme (MSD India) that became Merind Ltd before it was sold. Nawshir recalls with great warmth his exposure to J. R. D. Tata during this assignment. Nawshir became managing director of Voltas in 1997 at a time when it was on the brink of collapse, having posted losses thanks to its white goods business. Sadly, at around this time, he lost his wife Roshan (née Kharegat) to cancer. 

Nawshir brought about a dramatic turnaround in Voltas, retiring in 2001 but continuing as a director till 2011. He learnt how to "build a good team, select people, carefully, irrespective of age or gender, then leave them alone via trust and strategic guidance.” He was also a member of Ratan Tata’s apex strategic management group.

Post retirement Nawshir has been on the boards of several companies, assisting corporates to move towards global sustainability, including at Afcons Infrastructure Limited for 16 years. He has undertaken coaching assignments at the higher levels of management for corporates, family-owned businesses and the public sector, including Mahindra, Tata Steel, Sanofi and Sterlite among others. He has also advised innumerable NGOs (nongovernmental organizations).

Nawshir always preferred to work in an Indian setting, with an India organization. "I suppose, I inherited this from my father. Serving India was always uppermost in my mind,” he says. 

Indeed, it is this spirit of service that has always informed the actions of the Khurody family. Nawshir’s daughter, Khursheed, is a worthy inheritor of her grandfather’s passion for work which has benefited the needy, especially in rural areas. Her education spans four countries and several disciplines. Raised and educated in the UK, and the USA, she completed her schooling at England’s prestigious Stowe School and higher education at Harvard University. While representing Harvard alumni in India, she seeded the Harvard Club of Bombay. An accomplished western classical musician, she plays the piano, cello and violin at music festivals, and refers to herself as an outdoors person with a deep love of reading, writing, history, poetry and philosophy.

At present Khursheed is country chair of the Shivia Livelihoods Foundation in India, an international non-profit organization founded by Olivia Belcher whose grandfather and father lived in Calcutta and knew Mother Teresa well. Headquartered in London, Shivia works for the poorest of the poor in both India and Africa, through its livelihood development programs. The Foundation equips individuals with the necessary skills and support needed for economic self-sufficiency, having helped almost 41,000 families directly and well over 100,000 indirectly. In addition, she works as a strategic advisor and consultant to non-profit organizations. 

More recently, Khursheed has taken up an assignment as a coach and mentor for students of the School Of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) in Delhi and the SOIL School of Business Design (SSOBD), working with postgraduate scholars engaged in business design, blending management and the liberal arts, for a more holistic approach. "Civil societies and philanthropies are becoming more engaged with NGOs but the union between the three needs structuring and honing,” she says, as many NGOs, far from being agents of change, have lost their way. She also runs seminars and workshops like Leadership: Lessons through Music and the Humanities for senior management of corporations. "The parallels between music and management are astounding,” she says. 

Khursheed has also restored a derelict, 160-year-old heritage family property and launched a luxury start-up in hospitality in Khandala, creating a vintage brand experience. She wears many hats and is perfectly at home in all of them. With her grandfather and her father as role models she avers, "Ultimately, it’s all about the right values.”