Board Of Directors

Dr Y K Hamied is the Non-Executive Chairman of the Company. He represents the second generation of Cipla’s founding family. A world-renowned scientist, Dr Hamied obtained his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1960 from the University of Cambridge under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Lord Alexander Todd.

Dr Hamied has been an insightful R&D leader, a courageous industry captain, and an outspoken statesman of global pharma. From affordable drugs in HIV to enabling one of the world’s largest portfolio of drugs and devices in inhalation therapy, his pioneering work and immense contribution to healthcare have been celebrated around the world.

In 2005, Dr Hamied was conferred the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India for his distinguished service to the pharmaceutical industry. In 2013, he was named as one of India’s 25 Greatest Global Living Legends by NDTV, and in 2014, the University of Cambridge honoured him with a DSc the highest honour that the University can bestow. In 2017, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health conferred the ‘Public Health Hero Award’ on Dr Hamied, and in 2018 India Today named him one of ‘20 Global Indians’ who have challenged convention and created history.

Dr Hamied has also been the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Dr Hamied has frequent presence on high-level international panels on healthcare

Mr Umang Vohra joined Cipla Limited in 2015 and has been the MD & GCEO of the Company since September 2016. After gaining degrees in engineering, marketing and finance, Mr Vohra worked with Eicher Motors, PepsiCo and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. Through his previous roles in India and the US, he has built a distinguished career spanning almost two decades with deep understanding and experience of various aspects of the global pharmaceutical business.

As Cipla’s MD & GCEO, Mr Vohra’s priorities have been Cipla’s strategic growth, defining and executing Cipla’s roadmap to maintain momentum in home markets whilst strengthening its presence in other regions, consolidating its core focus areas, augmenting capability, and building the right organisation. Recognised as an action-oriented industry leader, Mr Vohra is a firm believer in the power of agile business models, disruptive technologies, data-driven analytics and a future-ready workforce with a view to making a difference to the lives of patients.

Mr Adil Zainulbhai is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr Zainulbhai retired as Chairman of McKinsey, India after a distinguished 34-year career with the firm, including leadership roles in its Washington and Minneapolis offices. His influence extends beyond McKinsey, serving as Chairman of the Quality Council of India and as a Board Advisor to the US India Strategic Partnership Forum. He has been a director on the boards of prominent corporates in India like Larsen and Tourbo, Reliance Industries etc. and is the Chairman on the Boards of Network 18 Media and Investments Limited and TV18 Broadcast Limited. He has also been on the international advisory boards of various international organisations and a member of various high powered economic groups, advisory committees and task forces of Government of India.

Mr P. R. Ramesh graduated in Commerce from Osmania University, Hyderabad and is a Fellow Member of the ICAI. He retired as the Director of Deloitte & Touche Assurance & Enterprise Risk Services India on 31st March 2020 and has also served as a member of Deloitte Global Board and Deloitte Asia Pacific Board. Ramesh has over 40 years of professional experience across manufacturing, banking and financial services, technology, media, telecommunications, energy and resources and consumer business sectors. He has been associated with various Regulatory bodies such as SEBI Committee on Disclosures and Accounting Standards; Committee for Reforming the Regulatory Environment for doing Business in India; Technical Committee to review the form and presentation of the Balance Sheet of the RBI; IRDA Standing Committee on Accounting Issues and Invitee to the Committee set up by the RBI to assist in convergence to IFRS by banks and National Advisory Committee on Accounting Standards. He has been associated with various Industry Bodies such as CII representing on its National Council, Committee on Financial Reporting and its CFO Forum; National Executive Committee of FICCI and Past President of the of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He has also been member of Accounting Standards Board of ICAI, Vision and Restructuring Committee and Auditing Practices Committee of ICAI and the Secretarial Standards Boards of the ICSI. He has co-authored publication by CCH titled iGAAP – Financial Reporting Standards in India including a comparison with IFRS and is a member of Board of Studies and the Faculty of Commerce of Osmania University.

Ms Punita Lal is an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Company. She has 30 years of experience in strategy, marketing and leadership in the corporate world across Asia, spanning multiple disciplines, geographies and cultures. Ms Lal has a BA(Hons) in Economics from St Stephen’s College, Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.

As a senior business leader, she has many accolades to her credit, including being chosen as one of India’s top 20 Businesswomen by Business Today in 2006, and being awarded Corporate Woman of the Year in 2009 by the FICCI Women’s Organisation. She is currently practising as an Independent Strategy and Marketing Consultant.

Robert Stewart is an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Company.

He has over 34 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry having worked with leading companies such as Roche, Abbott, Watson / Actavis / Allergan, Amneal and Theramex. Currently, Robert is the Chief Executive Officer at Theramex Ltd, a global specialty pharmaceutical company.

Robert has deep expertise in manufacturing operations, quality, supply chain and general management and a very strong exposure to commercial operations. He has served on the boards of several industry and non-profit organizations and served for nearly two years on the Amneal board of directors.

Robert has a B.S., Business Management from Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey.

Dr. Mandar is a medical doctor, and a management graduate from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, India.

Mandar spent 15 years at McKinsey (2002-2017), the last seven as partner where he co-led the healthcare practice in India and established the Hospitals practice for Asia. He served leading pharmaceutical companies across India and globally across several areas such as core strategy, manufacturing productivity improvement, R&D productivity, portfolio management, M&A and procurement programs.

From 2017 to 2019 Mandar worked part time advising several healthcare companies, providing leadership coaching and designing and teaching a course on problem solving at Ashoka University.

In Aug 2019, Mandar joined global travel-tech company OYO as CEO – SE Asia & Middle East, driving growth, doubling the number of hotels and homes, while transforming the regions contribution margin to a net positive territory. He led the business through the COVID crisis, improving EBIDTA loss to a negligible level while manging massive business disruptions.

Since March 2021 Mandar is the CEO - OYO Vacation Homes (OVH), Europe, a strategically important core market for the company. OVH is Europe's second largest vacation homes company. Mandar leads three acquired brands, DanCenter, Belvilla and Traum FW, each with a multi decade legacy. He has turbo charged their growth and profitability by migrating them into a tech forward environment while retaining the uniqueness of each businesses bult over the last several decades.

Mandar grew up in Mumbai, but now lives in Gurgaon with his wife and 3-year-old son. He enjoys spending time with his friends, watching movies, and trying out his hand at new pursuits, especially outdoors.

Dr. Balram Bhargava is a global public health leader. Mission driven, results oriented health professional with more than 35 years of experience in leading medical research, strengthening health systems, health care innovation, managing pandemic preparedness and health care delivery in resource poor settings. As a global leader he has been in the forefront of south-south cooperation, promoting equity in access to health care, democratisation of scientific research and promoting public-private cooperation to bring new technologies and affordable innovative products into the health systems.

He has led India’s Department of Health Research as its Secretary and Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research. He is also a Professor of Cardiology at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and serves as the Executive Director for Stanford India Biodesign Centre, School of International Biodesign (SiB). An extensively published scientist with more than 300 articles in peer reviewed journals and editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal Innovations and of the Indian Journal of Medical Research.

His experience ranges from treating more than a quarter million patients, training and mentoring super specialised cardiologists to setting health care policies and standards and advising several Ministers of Health and Heads of Government. In recent years he has been at the forefront of managing several public health crises in India including covid-19 and brought Indian research in shaping contemporary global practice through vaccine development and describing role of plasma therapy. He has also received numerous international and national awards for his contributions to health and development and has delivered more than 50 orations across the globe. He has international experience of more than 6 years in the USA, Europe and the Middle East.

Sharmila brings over 30 years of IT industry experience, with more than 25 years spent at Wipro, where she held leadership positions like Country Head for the UK and Global Head of Industrial Manufacturing. She has extensive global expertise in strategy, sales, business development, and program management across various industries. She has successfully led large-scale organizational changes and spearheaded significant business growth and transformation projects.

Sharmila presently also serves as an Executive Director on the Board of Doorstep School Foundation, an NGO focusing on Fundamental Literacy and Numeracy. Sharmila has also shown strong commitment to employee well-being through her roles as Chief Ombudsperson and Chair of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Committee at Wipro.

Mr Abhijit Joshi is the Founding and Managing Partner of a leading law firm M/s Veritas Legal, in India and has over 35 years of experience and expertise in the field of corporate and commercial law, merger & acquisition, risk management, litigation management etc. He is a distinguished dual-qualified solicitor in both India and England. With a legal career spanning over three decades, he is recognized as one of Asia’s Top 15 M&A and Private Wealth Lawyers. Mr Joshi has advised numerous business houses and promoter families, representing global conglomerates and large private equity firms in a wide range of complex deals and cases across various industry sectors, including the pharmaceutical industry. Mr Joshi also possesses skills in global economics, financials, risk management, strategic planning, corporate governance etc. His skills and expertise have earned him several accolades, including the Financial Times Innovation Award (Asia Pacific).

Maya Hari is an Independent Non-Executive Director at Cipla. She holds an MBA from INSEAD, France, and a Master of Science (MS) in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University. She also participated in Harvard Business School’s Board Director programs. She currently serves as the CEO of Terrascope, a global Climate-Tech company.

Over two decades, Maya has scaled high-growth businesses at tech giants like Twitter, Samsung, Google & Microsoft across the Silicon Valley, and Asia. She spent seven years at Twitter, leading their Asia Pacific and Global Strategy & Operations teams as Managing Director and Vice President. Maya also presently serves as an Independent Director on the boards of Axiata Group, Singlife Holdings, and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore. Her diverse experience includes past board positions at OpenLearning and a Chair role at The Indus Entrepreneurs Singapore.

An active angel investor in sustainability and technology startups, Maya is also a TEDx speaker and serves on the jury of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 at Emtech Asia.