While everyone has their own life-changing moment, Adar Poonawalla’s came about last month when as director of the fifth-largest producer of life-saving vaccines in the world, he launched a much-awaited intra-nasal vaccine to combat the swine flu disease.
“It made my life’s work, every effort, worth it. I’ve followed my heart and worked hard and luckily for me, God has been kind,” he says.
For someone born into one of the country’s premier horse racing families, Adar certainly lives a life charmed by good things — a large English-style manor, education abroad, stud farms, luxury toys like high speed cars, jets and more.
“But all of it,” he states firmly, “is not about the essence of life. For me, an inheritance isn’t everything. I’m privileged, sure, but I have worked hard to enjoy what I have today. People have asked me ‘where the hunger to do more comes from.’ It’s because I feel I need to prove things to myself,” he maintains.
And when he’s not leading his $2.1 billion vaccine firm into newer markets, Adar prefers to spend time at his home in Poona that he shares with wife Natasha. She is also someone who changed him.
“For one, I was a bit of an introvert but I’ve become more social now,” he laughs. Their love marriage tookplace three-and-a-half years ago. “My mother took a liking to Natasha when she first met her and predicted I would marry her. Dad had felt I should enjoy freedom as a bachelor, but he was also fond of Natasha then,” he recalls.
Together the couple love globe-trotting. “With Adar, life is exciting, there's never a dull moment. We’re avid travellers for one, and attend the annual Grand Prix at Monaco and the Arc de Troimphe Race in Paris,” states Natasha, as he joins in, “Fashion weeks too, occasionally out of force.”
While being a parent to one-year-old Cyrus has made him “more responsible,” Adar has another corporate philosophy. “Myfather Cyrus sold horses back in 1966 to raise $12,000 to start our institute. I’d want to be a risk taker like him,” he says.
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