Otara: Business Personality of the Year 2015

‘Some are the melody, some are the beat, youth is like a diamond in the sun and we all know that diamonds are forever.  So many dreams swinging out of the blue and I decided to let them come true. I have created some diamonds in the shape of jeans and tops and decided to call the collection Forever Young.  The designs are pushing some boundaries but that is ok, because we are all…Forever Young’ –Otara.

Clearly a brand apart

For being exceptionally smart, not just in the chic sense of the word, but as it pertains to business decisions that make waves for more reasons than one, ‘The Nation’ picks Otara Gunewardene as the Business Personality of the Year 2014.

Otara Gunewardene obviously knows words but she didn’t just turn a phrase or create a line of jeans and tops. She created a retail brand of international standing. She was not only ODEL’s brand ambassador, she was a brand herself. Odel and Otara go together. Went together. Past tense. Otara and her siblings sold their respective stakes in ODEL to Softlogic last week and Otara’s 25 year long association with ODEL, the brand she built from scratch and which she is most identified with, came to an end.

From the boot of a car to hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space has to be about a long journey and an epic story. It is not exactly a rags-to-riches story of course. Otara’s father Norman Gunewardene was Chairman, Aitken Spence while her brother Ajit is Deputy Chairman, John Keells Holdings.

Nevertheless, it is story about icon-making. Speaking strictly of physical presence, the ODEL outlet in Town Hall is today what Millers and Cargills used to be in a different era. Otara was no run-of-the-mill CEO. She was the signature of her company; her boldness, innovation, business acumen and sheer presence marked everything and everyone associated with ODEL.

The lady is powerful.  This has been recognized.  She is identified with ‘success’.  She is an icon, at least in Colombo and among certain circles.  She parts with ODEL with certain tangibles and she leaves behind some questions. 

First of all, the numbers.  Otara sold 80.8 million shares or 29.7% of the issued share capital of the company to Softlogic.  That’s 1777.6 million rupees coming Otara’s way.  It was not that Otara was retiring from a government job and going home with just a monthly pension to look forward to or from a mid-range private company taking her ETF savings.  It was, Otara clearly states, ‘a pragmatic business decision’.  She is a passionate individual but at point has she ever demonstrated that she let emotion interfere with the clinical matter of making business decisions. 

It is not unknown after all that a steep rise in administrative costs and drop in other income saw ODEL reporting a net loss of Rs 7 million in the first quarter of FY15 (April to June 2014) against Rs 51 million net profit in the same period of the previous year.   It cannot be easy for anyone to part ways with an entity that’s been part of half one’s life and one which has defined who one has become.  That kind of renunciation one would not expect from someone who affirms not just life but all its fascinating frills with the kind of vivacity Otara embodies.  Regardless of business pragmatism, there is something special about being able to let go.  That’s a facet of ODEL’s signature-face that’s new to the consumer. 

But what of ODEL without Otara, though?  She says she will ‘remain with the company for the foreseeable future,’ but that sounds clichéd.  She has stated, after all, that her future is with animals, in particular dogs and Embark, that other brand Otara created and dedicated to take care of the canine needy.  The problem is that ODEL and Otara were or developed into twin-brands, almost ‘Siamese’ in complementarity.  True, neither are national icons, yet, but to the extent that they are recognized elements in the up-market retail scene, they are talked of together. 

Will ODEL be just another shop without Otara?  Otara has other passions and she’s left with enough capital to develop other businesses and brands if she so wishes.  ODEL is a well-positioned brand and yet the Otara-tag as much as her hands-on decision-making presence always was impetus, back-up, cutting-edge and all those other things that make for success. 

As she embarks on a different life, which according to her ‘goes beyond material gain’ and heeds ‘true calling’, what happens to Otara the Businesswoman, Otara the Innovator, Otara the Fasion Icon, Otara the Retail Guru?  In what ways will she re-invent herself or else in what ways will she surprise us?  She is an immense talent, has immense capacity and is immensely rich.  And forever young too, let us not forget.