Spring 11 MASTER.indd - Thunderbird Magazine

Menzies started a company more closely
aligned with her own interests: Eka, which in
Sanskrit means “singular” or one of a kind.
Now she spends her time traveling to source
inventory, attending export fairs and building
her business, which sometimes surprises her
male vendors.
“If you are a woman entrepreneur in India
who is trying to do something different,
at first people sometimes look at you a little
hesitantly,” she says. “But then they admire
your guts for doing that — traveling on your
own and not having the hesitation to do so.
It can be difficult, but it becomes easier when
people see what you’re doing and want you to
succeed.”
Menzies says India’s retail sector has been
greatly influenced by the rise of online and
mobile shopping, and many opportunities
await retailers who can make it in e-commerce.
“India has seen a huge transition, primarily
because we have opened our eyes to so much
of what the rest of the world is doing,” she says.
“It’s not just your little market anymore. Now
you can go online and see what the rest of the
world is offering, and that has forced businesses
to speed up — in terms of product, quality
and prices — the overall value proposition.”
Menzies has big plans for the company in
2011, including the possibility of opening
more stores across the country, building a
stronger online shopping platform and focusing
more on exporting internationally.
BENGALURU:
Pursuit of inclusive growth
A thin wooden bookcase sits on the first floor
of the Bengaluru building where Harsha Moily
’97 runs his business. The bookcase is conspicuous
in the lobby and doesn’t seem to match the
rest of the furniture. A row of books has numbers
taped to their spines so they stay in order. The
titles are telling of the person who owns them:
“Blue Ocean Strategy,” “Leading Change,” “The
Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,” “Portfolios
of the Poor,” “Quotes of Gandhi,” “How to
Change the World.”
When Moily graduated from Thunderbird, he
went straight into venture capital positions in
New York and London. From his vantage point
abroad, he could see how a vibrant economy in
urban India was starting to shape progress in his
native country. While this economic outlook
was promising, Moily believed it didn’t tell the
whole picture.
“There was a lot of talk of India growing immensely,”
he said. “But the way I saw it, you still
had more than 75 percent of India left out of
India’s growth story. The last thing I wanted to
do was just be a spectator to what is happening
with that segment.”
So Moily left his position in London in 2005,
took the skills he’d learned working in venture
capital and founded Moksha-Yug Access, or MYA,
Above: Kimiko Thakur
Menzies ’94 stands Jan.
14, 2011, in front of Eka,
the upscale home décor
and art store she operates
in Bengaluru.
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