Bracing for the board

"I have had to be selective about which boards I agree to join and in doing so also need to ask myself which organizations I can best add value to. The last thing I want to be is an ineffective board member,” says Karachi based Spenta Kandawalla, co-owner and director of Captain Chemical Industries, a leading producer in Pakistan of potassium and sodium silicates used in soaps and detergents, construction, metal and mining, textiles, ceramics, water treatment and electronics. Over the course of the last 15 years she has additionally served as a Government appointed director on the board of State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan, one of Pakistan’s largest public sector financial institutions, as a non executive independent director of Engro Food Limited, one of the largest listed companies on the Pakistan Stock Exchange, and as non executive independent director and chair, Human Relations and Remuneration Committee of Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan Limited.
"When it comes to the corporate boards, in every organization I serve, I am the only woman on the board, and in each case the first woman to ever serve on the boards of these organizations. I think this puts an extra burden of responsibility on me. I need to make it easier for more women to be brought on to corporate boards, and to do this I need to be a really good example of how valuable and effective a woman board member can be. I believe that I contribute by being meticulously well prepared for the board meetings, by asking the hard questions, by thinking outside the box, and by being willing to express a different opinion and defend it where necessary. I have on occasion, by sticking to my position and not being swayed by other strong opinions on the board, been able to save billions of rupees for an organization on whose board I served,” explains Kandawalla in response to Parsiana’s email questions.

(Top): Spenta Kandawalla (and above) with classmate Hillary Clinton

Additionally she serves as chair or on the board of nine Not for Profit Organizations primarily in the field of health care and education. Some of these include I Care Foundation, Pakistan’s first Donor Advised Fund which she co-founded with her brother Farrokh Captain, the Bomanshaw Minocher Homji Parsi General Hospital (PGH) in Karachi, the Layton Rahmatullah Benevolent Trust, Pakistan’s largest NGO (nongovernmental organization) running a chain of 18 state-of-the-art free eye hospitals all across Pakistan, The Liaquat National Hospital and Medical College, the largest private sector hospital in Pakistan, the Captain Foundation, founded by her parents, the Jinnah Society, the Pakistan Scholars Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington DC, and various advisory boards at her alma mater Wellesley College in the US. She was a founding member and past international chair of the Business Leadership Council of Wellesley College and has served on the board of World Wild Life Fund Pakistan, and the Pakistan Council of United World Colleges.
"On the Not for Profit Boards, where governance often tends to be loose at best, I feel I contribute by bringing my business experience and best practices to the table, to bring focus, discipline and direction to the organization. Having had considerable experience in fund-raising that is also an area where I add value to the charitable organizations I serve,” she specifies.
She stepped down as PGH chairman after serving in that position for over a decade. Related Kandawalla, "I felt I had served long enough and it was time to bring new blood and fresh insights into the leadership of the organization. (The new chair is Roshan Mehri.) I am a firm believer in not hanging on to a position forever, and this is why I step down regularly from organizations where I have served for a long time.”

Since she continues to be on the trust board of PGH, Parsiana requested her to comment on the challenges of running this nearly 80-year-old community institution. The 32-bed hospital, consisting of male and female wards, semi private and private rooms, has over the years, "due to the ever dwindling and increasingly aged Parsi population in the city (been) serving more as an infirmary than a full-fledged hospital. Many young Parsis have moved away in search of economic betterment and are unable to afford to take their aging parents with them. This leaves a large number of old and aging Parsis completely alone in the twilight of their lives, some of whom come to PGH to take care of their medical needs and then choose never to leave.” Nominal rates are charged to those who can afford while those who can’t are fully subsidized by the trust funds of the Hospital and other Parsi trusts.
"The trustees and managing committee of the PGH would like to offer state-of-the-art medical facilities for the community, in addition to its infirmary services, but the main challenge faced is one of numbers — not enough Parsi patients, not enough Parsi physicians able and willing to give their time pro bono and the very high cost of carrying out the services of a full-fledged hospital,” she states.
As part of the "Stay Healthy Initiatives” under their preventive medicine program they have offered free of charge mammography screening for early detection of breast cancer, bone densitometry for detection of osteoporosis and screening for Vitamin D deficiency. These screenings have been done in conjunction with Karachi’s leading hospital, the Aga Khan University Hospital.
"There is no question that my Parsi roots influence every part of my life, every day…Being a Parsi is a proud and important part of my identity, my values, and my being. And being a Parsi in a predominantly Muslim society, is a part of my life I happily and comfortably live with,” she declares.
"I have been brought up in a male dominated society, but never really felt constrained by it. This I attribute to my very forward thinking parents: mother Frainy (née Chinoy, of Secunderabad) taught me by example. With a Masters degree in chemistry and geology, she worked shoulder to shoulder with my father in the early 1950s to set up Captain Chemical Industries. My father Kaeki (Captain, of Bombay) meanwhile, had very high expectations of me. From an early age he expected no less of me than of my older brother and made absolutely no allowances for the fact that I was a girl. It gave me the confidence I needed to be comfortable in the male dominated business and corporate world I have found myself in,” acknowledges Spenta who graduated in political science from Wellesley College with Hillary Clinton as a classmate in 1969.

"It was more difficult when I started my career 35 years ago. I was ahead of my time and the accepted norms prevailing then. Today, however, that is not the case — there is a boom of women entrepreneurship in Pakistan and also more and more women are on track to take over C-Suite (senior executive) positions and hopefully board positions too in the near future.”
Spenta is married to Darius Kandawalla, a chartered accountant by profession, whose companies have been the leading importers and distributors of automobiles and power products in Pakistan. He also looks after the family’s real estate interests and is active in community service. The couple has two daughters Tushna and Shaan. Tushna who is currently in the process of taking over the reins of Captain Chemical Industries is married to Reza Mirza and they live in Karachi with their two sons, Nadir, seven and Nael, five. Shaan, an entrepreneur who launched PlayDate Digital two years ago (see "PlayDate as playmate,” Zoroastrians Abroad, Parsiana, September 21, 2015) is married to Shaun Mirza and they live in New York, with their daughter Riah, three and son Zane, one. "My grandchildren are the center of my universe,” says Spenta who makes it a point to interact with them daily.
"Prayer is and has always been a very important part of my life and I have tried to inculcate it in my children and grandchildren too,” reveals Spenta, describing her religious leanings as "somewhere between moderate and liberal.” Referring to the dwindling strength of Parsis in Pakistan, Spenta comments, "Twenty-one years ago our total population in Pakistan was 2,800 and today we are an even more microscopic community -- less than 1,400 Parsis in a total population of nearly 200 million.
"For those of us for whom Pakistan is home, and who chose to continue to live here, despite being a tiny religious minority we have not felt targeted or isolated in any way. In fact Parsis, in Pakistan, are held in the highest respect for all that the community has contributed to Pakistan in the past and despite its small numbers quietly continues to do today,” she observes, adding, "It seems likely that the numbers will continue to decline, but it also seems likely that as long as there is a Parsi community in Pakistan it will continue to live by its faith and contribute to the society it is a part of.”