Chairperson, Thermax | Joined 1990, Chair since 2004 | Pune
A boiler company, and a family
Thermax began in 1966 as Wanson (India), a small Pune company making coil-type industrial boilers. It was founded by A. S. Bhathena and his son-in-law, Rohinton Aga, according to Thermax’s own company history. In 1980, after Bhathena retired, it was renamed Thermax, with Aga as chairman and managing director. Over the next decade and a half he turned a small boiler maker into a multi-division engineering business.
Meher Pudumjee is Rohinton and Anu Aga’s daughter. She studied at Nowrosjee Wadia College in Pune, then went to London for a postgraduate degree in chemical engineering at Imperial College, Business Standard reported in 2011. One lesson from her father stayed with her. She later described it to Imperial as “play to express and not to impress.”
Starting as a trainee
She joined Thermax in 1990, not as a director but as a trainee engineer. Imperial, the Indian School of Business and EY all record that she started there. It was the family business, but she began at the bottom of it.
In 1991, Business Standard reported, she and her husband, Pheroz Pudumjee, began managing Thermax’s subsidiary in the United Kingdom. The ISB profile describes it as a struggling business that the couple were sent to revive, and says they did. It was her first real test of running something, far from Pune and far from her family’s support.
1996: two losses in a row
In 1996 Rohinton Aga died suddenly. Anu Aga’s Wikipedia entry records it as a massive stroke. Business Today reported in 2025 that the Thermax board asked Anu Aga to take over just three days later. Meher came home from the UK and joined the board.
A little over a year later, Meher’s younger brother, Kurush, died at 25. “All mum has left now is me and I want to be there for her,” Meher told Outlook Business in 2017.
The company was in trouble too. Business Today reported that Thermax had picked up many non-core businesses, including electronics, software, grain silos and paint booths, which added to revenue but made little money. Its share price fell from about ₹400 to ₹36.
Anu Aga now had to steady a company that was losing its way. Business Today reported that an anonymous letter from a shareholder pushed her to sell some of the non-core businesses. Arun Maira, then chairman of the Boston Consulting Group in India, suggested bringing in BCG. Thermax could barely afford it, and some board members had doubts, but she went ahead. Vallabh Bhansali joined the board on the condition that he would leave once the company was back on track.
Meher watched all of this from close quarters. She was not yet 30, newly back from the UK, and the family was still grieving two deaths.
Learning the business from the inside
Back in Pune, she worked in Thermax’s finance division for a couple of years, the ISB profile says. She then led the air pollution control business and a water joint venture. These were working roles, not ceremonial ones.
The worst came in 2000–01. BW Businessworld reported in 2016 that Thermax made operating losses for the first time in its history. It laid off staff in large numbers, something the family had earlier done only over integrity issues. The family discussed selling businesses her father had built, and decided to keep going.
BCG recommended deep restructuring. As part of it, Anu, Meher and Pheroz gave up their executive powers and moved to non-executive roles, BW Businessworld reported. The family also parted ways with a long-serving managing director.
For Meher, that step back was the hardest part. She admitted to BW Businessworld that she sometimes interfered in day-to-day operations, which made management’s work harder. She had to learn to delegate. She became a non-executive director in 2001 and vice chairperson in 2002, Channeliam reported.
The ultimatum
Around 2003, Anu Aga decided to retire and work on social causes. Meher, then 35, asked her mother to stay on longer. BW Businessworld reported that her mother gave her a choice: take over now, or the family would hire a professional.
“I am a perfectionist and I didn’t want to risk failure,” Meher said later. She went to a 10-day Vipassana meditation course and came back ready. In 2004 she became chairperson of Thermax, fourteen years after joining as a trainee.
Chair, not chief executive
She chose to lead as a non-executive chair, working with professional managers rather than running operations herself. By 2022, the ISB profile notes, she had worked with three professional CEOs over 18 years as chair. M. S. Unnikrishnan, who was at Thermax from 1997 to 2020, served as managing director and CEO for 13 of those years.
Her aim was to make Thermax a global supplier of boilers and chillers, Business Standard reported, and its operations spread into South East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, the UK and the US. A 2007 McKinsey report credited her with a major turnaround. Business Standard named her its CEO of the Year, and in 2008 the World Economic Forum chose her as a Young Global Leader.
She also pushed the company onto a “green path,” as BW Businessworld put it: cleaner air, cleaner energy and cleaner water, for Thermax and its customers. EY said in 2024 that she had doubled Thermax’s turnover over a decade and restructured the business. In FY24, it reported, revenue was ₹9,323 crore and profit after tax rose almost 43% to ₹644 crore. Thermax then had more than 40 subsidiaries, 14 manufacturing sites and a sales and service network in over 90 countries.
Outside the boardroom
She chairs the Akanksha Foundation, which runs schools for children from low-income communities, and has served on the boards of Teach For India and Pidilite Industries. She sings soprano with the Pune-based Chamber Singers and plays the piano, Business Standard reported.
Asked about setbacks, she told BW Businessworld: “What matters is not the fall but how fast you get up and run.”
Thermax at 60
In 2026 Thermax marked its 60th year. Its board declared a special anniversary dividend, and the company reported an order book of ₹13,604 crore at the end of March 2026, up 27% on the year before. It now works across industrial products, industrial infrastructure, green solutions and chemicals.
Meher Pudumjee has been chair for more than two decades. She started as a trainee in her family’s company, ran a struggling subsidiary abroad, and stepped back from executive power when the turnaround called for it. Fourteen years after joining, she took the chair. Every step along the way gave her something she would need at the top.
Founder Journeys is a Sakhi Sangini series telling the stories of women who built businesses in India. This story is based on public interviews and reporting.
Cover photo: supplied to Sakhi Sangini.
Sources: Business Standard (January 2011); Imperial College London (September 2009); BW Businessworld (April 2016); Outlook Business (December 2017); Business Today (March 2025); Indian School of Business, Shadow a CEO profile; EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalists (2024); Channeliam (August 2024); Kotak Neo (May 2026); Thermax, company overview; Wikipedia, Anu Aga.
