Samina Hamied: Playing for the Team

For Samina Hamied, one of the biggest moments of her professional career was Cipla’s $550-million buyouts of InvaGen Pharmaceuticals and Exelan Pharmaceuticals in 2015. For a long time, this home-grown pharmaceuticals major was viewed as being conservative and somewhat diffident. “We just managed to show the mettle of Cipla,” says Hamied, the company’s Executive Vice Chairperson. The buyouts gave Cipla a big presence in the US, apart from a product portfolio that included central nervous system, cardiovascular and diabetes. There are many occasions through the conversation when she underlines the importance of having the right team. “If you have the right talent and empower them, they are bound to excel,” she says. Outside work, she is a big one for marathons, which she says gives her time to “just think and open the world to different cultures”.