Aparna Bawa: Lady Whirlwind

How do you manage a zooming, sorry, booming business? Ask Aparna Bawa. The Chief Operating Officer and Interim Chief Legal Officer of Zoom is responsible for daily operations—designing, implementing and supervising business operations, and establishing policies that promote company culture. No big deal? Not quite. With demand for video communication shooting through the roof owing to Covid-19, Zoom registered a 470 per cent increase in its customer base to 4,67,100 companies (with more than 10 employees each) from April 2020 to March 2021. That resulted in a, eh, booming revenue growth of 326 per cent to $2.65 billion—and 869 per cent growth in net cash flow—in FY21. How did she manage? “[When starting out in my career], I often took on too many projects at the same time,” says Bawa. “Over the years, I have overcome this challenge by allocating time with a well thought through action plan for each task.” Copy that.