Anu Aga's quiet triumph over tragedy at Thermax

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Anu Aga is a byword in Indian business for her resilience, courage, and stoicism in the face of personal tragedies. Less celebrated is her business acumen and her surgical turnaround of Thermax, an engineering giant that was haemorrhaging value when she took the helm.

In February 1996, Rohinton Aga, her husband and the driving force behind Thermax, died of a massive stroke. Within 48 hours, the board thrust the chairperson's role upon her even though her only experience was a decade heading human resources at the energy solutions company. Just 14 months later, before grief could even begin to heal, her 25-year-old son Kurush died in a car accident.

But even as she coped with her sorrow, there was a company that needed her urgent attention. Thermax, set up by her father A.S. Bhathena in 1966 as Wanson India, but assiduously grown by Rohinton, confronted an existential threat with its share price plummeting from around ₹400 to ₹36.

Even as its losses mounted, an anonymous shareholder's letter arrived, accusing her of letting investors down. For the Aga family, “letting someone down" was, as she would later say, a dirty word. Anu Aga had the option of giving up and retreating into private life.

But the former St. Xavier's College graduate, who had trained at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in psychiatric and medical social work, was made of sterner stuff. This mild-mannered, soft-spoken woman with close-cropped silver hair and a preference for simple cotton saris decided the best tribute to the people she had loved would be to ensure their work didn't go to waste.

It wasn't an easy task. The Asian financial crisis of 1997 had compounded India's economic downturn. Key industries like