For Meena Ganesh, entrepreneurship was nowhere in radar in her early academic years. It was all about being a professor and taking up research. But fate, it seems, had a different proposition for her.
Today, Ganesh (54) is counted amongst India’s foremost business leaders and most successful entrepreneurs. She has carved a name for herself as the MD and CEO of Portea Medical, a venture she set up in 2013.
For the uninitiated, Portea is India’s largest and fastest growing home healthcare company. It brings in-home to patients the full range of geriatric, chronic, post-operative care as well as allied healthcare services. Ganesh is leading the charge in positioning the company as consumer healthcare provider. Currently, it has over 3500 employees with operations across 16 cities.
Prior to establishing Portea, Ganesh spent about three decades in industries including healthcare, consulting, technology, outsourcing, education and e-commerce. Till February 2013, Ganesh was a promoter and board member of TutorVista, and CEO and MD of Pearson Education Services, which included innovative and successful brands such as leading online tutoring company, TutorVista, and Edurite, a provider of technology-based solutions and digital content.
Early years
It was in the early 80’s that Ganesh realised that there could be a career in management. This is after her brother got enrolled into IIM-Calcutta. Ganesh decided to follow the same footsteps and got selected in all the IIMs. However, she chose pursue a management degree in IIM-C as her brother studied there. She holds a graduate degree in Physics from the Madras University.
Tody, Meena also serves on the Board of Governors of the IIM-Calcutta. She is also a member of the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) Innovation Entrepreneurship Council as well as the CII Healthcare Council. She is also a partner in Growthstory, an entrepreneurship platform that promotes greenfield ventures. Besides, she also is a co-promoter of nearly a dozen, new-age Internet/Technology enabled start-ups. A few of them that are leaders in their category include Bigbasket.com - India’s premier e-grocery retailer, home solutions company - HomeLane, food tech company, FreshMenu and Bluestone.com – India’s leading online jeweller.