Guided By Principle

GV Prasad, the co-Chairman and CEO of Dr. Reddy’s  Laboratories, talks about creating value for sustainable profitability

- Priyanca Vaishnav

While watching well-made films, you know how you wonder how a dialogue can flow so smoothly? Unhindered by fillers or weird pauses, who can have such flawless clarity of mind? Then you speak to the inimitable GV Prasad, the co-Chairman and CEO of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, and the possibility of the phenomenon stops seeming so remote. Prasad was appointed chairman in April 2013.

My chat with the second generation entrepreneur began with a little reminiscing about a city common to both of us — Hyderabad. An oft-undersold place, Prasad is all praises for the city of Nawabs, known for the Kohinoor, its biriyani, “charming” monuments, khubani ka meetha and Deccani Hindi. Having spent some part of his childhood, and later moving back to Hyderabad (Prasad is married to Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy’s daughter, Anuradha), he has a treasure trove of memories, especially of the family residence in central Hyderabad near the lake at Himayat Nagar — among the earliest swift-developing neighbourhoods of the time — much before the present-day Banjara and Jubilee Hills. “Every city I’ve lived in is close to my heart, but I reckon since I have lived here now for so many years and my family is here, it is most special.”

Prasad studied at the revolutionary Vidyaranya School run by Shanthamma. Any long-term resident of Hyderabad or Secunderabad will take that as a certificate of high moral fabric. He went on to complete the rest of his school years in Nellore, where his extended family live till date, and then to Chennai to start his undergrad studies in Engineering. Prasad eventually went on to complete his Chemical Engineering degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Additionally, he has a Purdue University Master’s degree in Industrial Administration.