Thermax's unprepared widow made sure her daughter would never be one

Thermax, the Pune boiler and energy firm, had no succession plan when chair Rohinton Aga died in 1996, and the heir apparent, his son Kurush, died within a year. His widow Anu Aga — who had only ever worked in the company's HR side — was thrust into the chair. 'My mother had to take over in circumstances that were not so good, and had a rough time,' her daughter Meher Pudumjee later recalled.

Aga steadied the company with outside help — hiring Boston Consulting Group to restructure — and made a defining governance move: family members came out of executive positions and onto the board, leaving operations to professionals. Then she engineered the handover she never got. Pudumjee, an Imperial College chemical engineer, had joined as a trainee engineer in 1990, turned around the UK subsidiary, served stints in treasury and working capital, and sat on the board from 1996.

In October 2004, after fourteen years of preparation, Pudumjee took over as chairperson. 'My mother didn't want me to go through the same difficulties... We were all prepared for me to become chairperson. Most important, I was prepared.' Aga stayed on the board and moved to social work and Parliament.

Pudumjee has chaired Thermax for two decades of growth in energy and environment solutions, while professional CEOs run operations under family oversight.

Anu Aga's own crisis succession in 1996 proved what an untrained heir costs.

BCG's restructuring put professionals in executive roles, so the heir's job was governance, not rescue.

Fourteen years of line roles — trainee engineer to UK subsidiary chief to board — made Pudumjee's appointment credible inside the firm.

Aga handed over while alive and stayed as a director, so mentoring continued after the title changed.

The best succession plans are written by people who survived the absence of one: train the heir inside the business for years, and hand over while you can still hold their hand.

Meher Pudumjee remains Thermax's chairperson more than two decades on, presiding over its shift from boilers to clean air, energy and water solutions, with professional CEOs running operations. The Aga–Pudumjee handover is routinely taught in India as the model of planned family succession, precisely because it was designed as the opposite of the one before it.