Shipping sector of women, by women; not for women alone

Published in Sagar Sandesh Nov-28 edition

Source:www.sagarsandesh.com/epaper

Chennai:

Sagar Sandesh News Bureau:

If you think the shipping sector and its allied services like clearing and forwarding, brokering and chartering vessels are purely in male bastion, change your vision, because women are also taking centre stage of late.

The question ‘Why not I?’ a few years ago had landed Mrs. G. Sripriya into a new world, where she heads an all-woman team to cater to the industry’s logistics needs.

More than 30 women are working in her dream company - Transy India, which looks after project forwarding, ship brokering, NVOCC and port agent works for different clients in the country.

Sagar Sandesh caught up with the budding woman entrepreneur in the shipping and logistics arena at her posh office in Chennai and she was very candid in telling us how the idea came and materialized into a reality.

Excerpts of the interview:

SS:Give us the background and profile of the company?

Mrs. G. Sripriya : Transy India, part of the TRANSY/AGS shipping group, is a global transport group with offices in Antwerp, Archangelsk, Astana, Baku, Chelyabinsk, Conakry, Dusseldorf, Ekaterinburg,  Frankfurt, Houston, Kiev, London, Moscow, Mumbai, Novorossiysk, Novosibirsk, Odessa, Rotterdam, Shanghai, St.Petersburg and Vladivostok.

TRANSY has now opened a regional head office in Chennai dedicated to the Indian market and offering local clients a direct gateway to Europe, Russia and Africa.

Q : How come the idea of only women, that too in a male-dominated shipping and logistics field, popped up?

A : I rise with business background as my father owned a transport company. I observed his style of work from my childhood, which motivated me to be a successful woman entrepreneur. Our all woman

team is supporting us to be a major successful player in the logistics domain in the country. When it comes to competition, we do not bother about domination or anything else, but our 100% focus will be on the quality of service.

Q : How is the industry response for this venture?

A : Yes, We did have initial troubles and difficulties, but we overcame them with a lot of confidence and captured the firm market space only because of our quality of service.

Q : How do you manage the state of affairs with the all women staff?

A : Though it’s a business opportunity in this competitive world, I see it (employing all women) as my  social obligation because I believe helping a woman to come up in life is like supporting the whole future generation or society.

Q : Tell us about your future plans?

A : We have already made our presence felt in many countries and our next plan is to expand our services all over India.

Q : Any remarkable memory that drives your passion for such a unique venture?

A : Yes, I have always a question in my mind " why not I" which has driven me to “what I am now". One fine day, I had a spark why not I in this male-dominated business which turns a lot of passion towards this venture. I understood it requires a lot of focus and concentration which help me to be a one of the successful players in this domain.