A woman can do anything when she takes matters in her own hands.
By reviving the company founded by her late husband, and saving the brand CCD, Malavika, wife of late V G Siddhartha scripted an incredible success story, which continues to inspire million young entrepreneurs.
Cafe coffee day was founded by V G siddhartha on 11 july,1996 with a dream of making the largest coffee chain.
In a short period of time the cafe coffee day gave a remarkable performance and built a strong name in the world of coffee. CCD became a coffee chain that started selling lattes and espressos in the world where people predominantly drank filtered coffee.
For the next 2 decades the CCD expanded its business to various cities and countries with more than 1700 outlets with vending machines in almost every hospital, companies, and colleges.
But just like every good thing, the world of CCD also turned upside-down when the CEO of CCD, V G Siddhartha committed suicide in 2019 under the debt of 7000 crores .
In a letter he mentioned,“My intention was never to cheat or mislead anybody, I have failed as an entrepreneur.”
Stepping up of Malavika Hegde as the new CEO
Amidst the pain, Malavika Hegde, wife of V G Siddhartha stepped up as the new CEO in December 2020 and ever since she has worked round the clock to get rid of all the debt and make CCD a profitable company.
Malavika Hegde is the daughter of Congress veteran and former Chief Minister of Karnataka SM Krishna. She did her schooling in the hi-tech city and her engineering from the Bengaluru university. Even before taking up the position of CEO, Malavika was serving as a non-board member in the company.
It is said that Malavika sent a personal note to every 25,000 employees working the company, promising them that she will definitely lower the debt to a manageable level. She also said the story of coffee and CCD is worth preserving.
Malavika saved CCD from becoming a history by shutting down the outlets which were not profitable enough, withdrawing hundreds of coffee machines from companies and IT parks. She was also able to bring new investors to the company to fuel in a little money which resulted in lowering the debt.
Her perseverance finally showed when in march 2021, the debt dropped from 7000 crores to 1731 crores. Today the company successfully manages 572 coffee outlets across the country and around 36,000 vending machines in various companies, IT parks, hospitals and colleges.
She also once mentioned that challenges increased but somewhere along the way in the past 12 months, her mission has been to uphold the proud legacy of her late husband Siddhartha. She also said that he has left her a job to do, to settle every lender to the best of her capability, to grow the business and to enthuse and foster her employees.
By revving the brand CCD, and keeping the spirit alive of her husband, she has imprinted her name in the books of entrepreneurs. She has shown how a woman can be a daughter, a wife, a mother, a successful entrepreneur and everything in between.