Her name is Malavika Hegde.
In July 2019, her husband VG Siddhartha walked onto a bridge near Mangalore and told his driver he would be back shortly.
He never came back.
Siddhartha had built Cafe Coffee Day into India’s largest coffee chain. 1700 cafes. 25000 employees. He had also buried the company under Rs 7214 crore of debt.
The board panicked. Analysts wrote CCD off.
Nobody had accounted for Malavika.
She was an engineer. A mother of two. She had never run a company in her life. Her father SM Krishna was a former Chief Minister of Karnataka. She could have lived in that shadow comfortably.
She chose the debt instead.
In December 2020, she took over as CEO. In the middle of a pandemic. Her first act was a personal letter to all 25000 employees. She wrote the CCD story is worth preserving. I will fight for this brand.
Then she got to work.
She called every lender personally and renegotiated terms. She sold Global Village Tech Park to Blackstone. She closed every loss making outlet. She exported premium Arabica beans from her own 20000 acre farm to international markets to generate fresh revenue.
She never raised the price of a single cup of coffee.
By 2021, the debt was down to Rs 1731 crore. By 2023, it was Rs 465 crore.
A 93 percent reduction in four years.
Today, CCD runs 423 cafes and 55733 vending machines across India. Netflix is developing a web series on her life. Business schools are teaching her turnaround as a case study.
She had no playbook. She had no mentor. She had grief and 25000 people depending on her.
That was enough.
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@MumbaiPolice@BandraPS@MumbaiPolice loudspeakers music and full volume commentary is on today in full swing again ,it’s not going to stop at 10. Can you help ?
Mt Mary Steps Maidan, has turned into a latenight political arena-loudspeakers & commentry till 1 AM+
For every festival. Now it’s a cricket league violating Noise Pollution Rules & our right to sleep
@ShelarAshish@Asif_Zakaria@mpcb_official
1000 +residents affected also vote!
@MumbaiPolice@BandraPS@BandraPS speakers are being tested right now. So now I can’t catch up on sleep in the noon. What are you doing ? This will go through the day and night . When are you stopping the loudspeakers? We go to work and pay our taxes, our votes count too
@MumbaiPolice@BandraPS Thank you Sir, we have tried reaching them always. I speak on behalf of the young citizens of this locality, who are tired of complaining to each other on WhatsApp groups
Did anyone in your family ever read Reader's Digest? That little magazine was always around - on the table, in the bathroom, tucked in a drawer. Short stories, jokes, and advice you somehow always read. Who remembers it?
@zoru75 One should try to avoid the greed of redevelopment if the condition of the building is good.
Don't go for redevelopment just for extra incremental area.
Incase of Redevelopment, only the builder, govt and #BMC Officers makes money at the cost of the City.
Bandra is going to define the word unlivable in Mumbai. Here's what's going to happen once all the re-development of all the old buildings is done:
1. Entire property market will go into a bear market. It's already begun.
2. There will be luxury (Carter Road, Band Stand, Pali Hill) and middle class (everything else).
3. The quantity and quality of people will change fundamentally. The cute, next door, middle class will give way to a nouveau riche crap crowd.
4. The Maruti Zen will be replaced by the Thar, the Honda City by Audi, Merc, BMW. Welcome to a new 2Rs type of people.
5. The traffic will become so bad, the rich will demand for flyovers from Linking Road to Carter Road.
6. Like SoBo, the crowd will become Jurassic Park level dinosaur who send their kids abroad. These kids will come back for term break and stand outside Boojee, Bokka.
8. The number of restaurants and pubs will x 100 as new commercial buildings come up and every politician launders money in hospitality and real estate.
7. The smart ones will be those that sold their house to a builder, moved to a much larger house further up north.
Welcome to the true Queen of Suburbs.
@MMRDAOfficial If you guys were liable to criminal prosecution and jail sentences maybe there’d be a lot better infrastructure quality in this city
Disgraceful
@PoojaB1972 Thank you. We need more public figures to raise their voice. While Bandra is being plundered we are forced to watch. The construction comes from CRZ relaxations that weren’t anyone’s to give away in the first place. Reclamation population will go 4 times. Good luck getting home
Bandra is unlivable. Smog. Dust. Roads an absolute mess. Can barely breathe if one steps outside. Meanwhile construction work continues with zero safety protocol. Contractors dont even spray the roads to control the dust emmision. When will this end? 🙏
@GabbbarSingh Krabi itself is meh. Sofitel is away from the crowds, I had considered it , however it’s a typical big resort that’s ageing. You’ll compare it to taj village candolim and the latter is probably better. Ok for families I guess.