PVLF 2025

Interview With Monica Malhotra- Managing Director, MBD Group

on Mar 05, 2022

Ms. Monica Malhotra Kandhari, a second-generation entrepreneur, is the Managing Director of MBD Group. She started working at the young age of 16, and today she is recognised as one of the important pillars of the publishing industry for her efforts to promote education across the country. MBD is the only Indian-origin publisher to be included in the National Catalogue of South Africa. More than 100 MBD titles are accredited by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education. Monica has also worked towards creating synergies with leading international brands like Microsoft and Intel, among others.

She has been elected Vice President (North) for the Federation of Indian Publishers and is a key member of CII and Co-chair (Publishing) at FICCI. Monica leads MBD’s education business both in print and digital education spaces. She is also involved with the Design & Construction, Hospitality, and Real Estate ventures of MBD Group.

Frontlist: What are the biggest achievements you would like to share from your remarkable journey as the Managing Director of MBD Group so far?

Monica: I would like to mention that I got the platform from the very beginning when I was stepping into the publishing industry. I was highly fortunate to learn from the master himself, my father, Shri Ashok Kumar Malhotra, not because he's my father, but since he is known to be legendary in the field of education, refining education, as well as consumption of education in a unique way. I learned everything from him. I am an inquisitive person and also learning from the master was one of the three key things which were the first, I would say, the greatest achievement of my life from where this journey started. I had learned the nuances of the business for two years. I started quite early, at the age of 15. I always wanted to learn everything by myself. That’s how I began the journey of ‘Break The Bias’. I am an owner’s daughter, so I had to work rigorously to learn the trade. I was made to do one of my books myself and got awarded at the age of 17 or 18. Then I began to achieve numerous awards. MBD Innovation’s journey started from there as we wanted to expand ourselves in every sector, whether it’s education, hospitality, or anything else. We wanted to show our existence across the world.

I share about education per se, where we included a lot of things like capacity building, cultivating skills in people, opening our skill centers, partnering with the government, and paper manufacturing as well. We are backward and forward integrated into stationary manufacturing and now curating a big way into the digital space. We began with a lot of research for 5-6 years for the product requirements in places like India, where a diverse culture exists. Today, the MBD group provides all kinds of services and products which are significant for teaching and learning processes, whether it's digital or in print format, or in the curriculum framework, or whether it is single or hybrid, we customized it to the last mile. Since the inception of MBD, we’ve been following the culture and trends till the present times, and our services are easily obtainable to the masses at reasonable prices, displaying our greatest achievements. Today we have become the pinnacle of an Education company that covers all facets of providing learning and education.

On this special occasion of International Women’s Day, I would like to talk about certain things like first, being a woman, I am the first person from my family who entered into a business space. I had this thought in the back of my mind - “whether I will be accepted as a woman or not, you know; what kind of biases will be there at the workplace?” I had to break the bias of being the daughter of the owner. Yes, there was a hesitation about people commenting, “she won’t stay for too long” or “she’s taking it as a hobby and will soon leave it.”

I have learned one thing in life that there is no substitute to knowledge, and practical knowledge in itself has led to, I think, the ‘survival of the fittest’ around me, the technology muscle, which I've created for the women working along with me. Therefore, I would say this has been an interesting journey so far.

Frontlist: What are your thoughts and feelings on being honored as "TIMES ICON POWER" 2021?

Monica: Each award which you get, you get a sense of encouragement, especially when this ‘Times Icon Power Award’ came during the pandemic.

Where I mean, I always say that this is for the team. But this time more, I think it's more because of the team. I mean, the way they have stood sincerely by the group’s values has been remarkable. They were consistent, confident, optimistic, and determined. I think it is this time. So this award’s credit goes to them. I am thankful to them, and it definitely is encouraging all of us as a group.

Frontlist: MBD is one of the biggest education companies in India, and with outstanding initiatives like E-learning ventures, what is your next vision?

Monica: The core of MBD is innovation, so if you look at the trajectory, the journey up till now, whether it was augmented reality, virtual reality or 3D learning, or apps, ICT programs, we were almost the first ones to bring to education in India and the cable segment. So I can proudly say that my team put that together. Like I wrote earlier, I have a quest for learning. My idea of learning is to visit different countries and analyze what those countries have to offer us, which we can bring to India, and India per se has numerous states. In fact, the students population is far and wide. I mean, there are so many things which you can bring to the table and fight for consumption.

We need to evaluate what suits best to our market from across the industries.

So, we see what is suitable to our market from even cross industries. Due to the prevalence of the digital era, we expand ourselves digitally as well. We are working as content partners for several government projects. When the pandemic started, our team worked together resolutely for an innovative product called Aasoka. It is an online learning platform for classes K-12.

Aasoka is a hybrid model and mobile app whereby we provide books, ERP solutions that facilitate distance and class learning, and teaching. Under Aasoka, we provide LTS that is called Learning and Teaching Solutions. It lays out all the solutions required by the school, whether it’s from the SDA strategy perspective, a teaching perspective, or learning perspective and mapping. All solutions are adaptive and customized.

MBD always brought services at very humble costs. In India, not everybody has deep pockets to pay. People have the notion that digital objects are a bit expensive. But MBD would like to crash this embargo. Aasoka is a tool that you have to use effectively for hybrid learning. Not just in India, we would like to take this solution in different countries as well. As of now, it is suitable for developing countries.

Frontlist: How do you balance your work and personal life?

Monica: I would like to talk first about upbringing. My parents were progressive in thoughts and always told me that family comes first. It is good to be professional but better to strive first to be a complete woman. This thought I’ve been following in my life. I used to observe people. For instance, there are men and women in the same conference room, and you get a call from home. A man will react like, see I'm sensitive and a good human being if they’re picking up the call. On the contrary, women are not professional enough if they’re doing the same thing.

Nobody has to feel embarrassed about having a family. So we all should strive to become complete humans. It gives me the liberty of designing each day differently depending upon what demands more of my attention today. There are a certain amount of hours that I have aligned to the family. Creating a balance between family and work is highly significant. The family would never understand if you put your personal life in the backseat. Disconnectivity from family leads to a meaningless life. I always give my time to my family whenever they need it.

So I believe, if anyone in the organization have an emergency at home and would prefer to work from home instead, I would allow it because I see their heart is in place, and their work has been delivered no matter what, and in whichever way they work. So I think it's more about being a complete human being. So that's what we should strive for. Otherwise, we will create another bias for ourselves in some years to come.

Frontlist: As a woman entrepreneur, would you like to share some struggles and challenges you've faced in this male-dominated publishing industry?

Monica: There's no substitute for knowledge. A person should only have respect for clarity in their mind, not for their background. It is very important what you take and what you give back? Certain ratios are not so humble in terms of women, and these ratios are everywhere. However, it is improving day by day.

It's going to take some another decades and centuries to bring this equality. Moreover, we have to bring equality in every sphere. Because every woman or man has their own individual capacities and capabilities, depending on what they want to do, it need not be that each job should have equal numbers. But if I talk culturally, in this publishing industry, with decision-makers, women are much more in numbers in managerial roles than anywhere else in the field. Whether it's on the editor level or decision-maker levels, for us, there's no dearth of women. There are women at every level, but if I talk about numbers, it will be flourishing as we progress along not only in this industry but many other industries as well. We have seen the progression to be much faster. As you go further down, it is much slower. But then, it is so challenging to bring about that paradigm shift or a change. We have to start at both macro and micro levels to bring out the presence of women in any field.

Frontlist: This year’s theme for International Women's Day is ‘Break The Bias’. Could you enlighten our readers and share your views on how important it is to empower women?

Monica: I feel that I totally agree that educating a woman is educating a family, and it means educating the society and then the country at large. It will definitely contribute to the country in every possible way and will also impact the GDP positively.

It will also improve the standard of living of people. But then, I also feel that education is important for both men and women. For men to understand that woman has to be respected, even if she's a homemaker.
I'm not generalizing at all because everybody has their own obstacles and their own opportunities. So, it’s very wrong if one thinks that being a homemaker is any less productive.

Here if we are saying that our grandmothers and all who were homemakers, didn't do a good job, or they were not progressive, I think we are wrong somewhere. So it's all about whoever whatever is doing should be respected for the job. Many things are responsible for being what we are, where we are, and where we want to reach. I think we definitely have to respect each other. And it should first begin by reflecting on the biases we have in our own mind, which then clearly reflects in our work.

The first step of empowerment of whatever work you do, wherever we come from, we should respect that we want to strive for equality, we should try to be better than what we are today, not trying to be better than men. We should not strive to bring another inequality in 100 years or the next century to come and fight back.

We need to be better than what we are today, from yesterday till today. We should give space to women for advancement, and this will make them feel secure to do anything that they want to do in life.

Frontlist: MBD Group has grown its business in various areas since its inception. What have you planned till now for the sake of women’s involvement in the publishing industry?

Monica: I always think about the group at large when it comes to education, primarily about building skills. We own the hospitality, commercial residences, and hotels. If you look at the hotels, there are very few women involved in the frontline staff. But you would see that at the managerial level, there is women’s involvement, even if it is at the mid-level or higher level of management. At higher levels, things are improving now. In publishing, women are there as decision-makers. And if I talk about even at the editorial level, the creative level has a lot of women involved. We have to leave this thought of who’s men or women. In the publishing industry, we have lots of women who are in eadership roles, leading teams, leading the content, the animation teams, the teachers, the evaluators, the reviewers. Everything is burgeoning at a good pace.

Frontlist: What would you like to advise our next generation of women entrepreneurs and those who are aspiring to break the glass ceiling?

Monica: 1) First, we need to erase the biases from our minds, then only you will be perceived if you come into your actions that you are not coming.

2) Determination has to be there that you have to do something. Whatever you have to do, you want to do it with perfection.

3) You have to avoid straining yourself thinking, that people around you are judgmental. It's just good for them. Just concentrate on striving to be a complete human. Then, all the other judgements will fail around us.

4) We need to understand how to isolate ourselves from negativity use knowledge, our studies, and our learning. Build up a team, motivate them, oversee them and deliver.

So ultimately, I believe that once we break these biases internally from our minds, only then we will be able to witness changes gradually outside in our surroundings.