India being one of the biggest avenues for business has been a suitable place for billion dollar investments. Business environment being conducive has also provided proper opportunities to various business models alike. In the present scenario, legal environment has developed by leaps and bounds and has also garnered much-touted attention by investors. There is growth in mergers and amalgamations which evolved various business opportunities and that there is a paradigm shift from dispute resolution mechanism to more impetus on dispute prevention techniques.
Corporate lawyers are involved in advising businesses on their numerous legal rights, responsibilities, and obligations, right from negotiating the acquisition of a multibillion dollar company to assisting a small start-up company. They hold a niche expertise on a specific limb of corporate law such as mergers, private equity, venture capital, etc. One such renowned Indian corporate lawyer and a female business icon, who has substantial expertise in the corporate law, is Zia Mody, the Founder & Managing Partner of AZB & Partners; which is a prominent law firm in the country, providing precise and practical advice based on the deep-neck knowledge of the legal, regulatory, and commercial environment.
Zia’s bedrock idea of starting a boutique law firm was to create a value proposition and provide services of a uniquely responsive and thoughtful nature. She has been hugely contributing to the law industry with her substantial expertise in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, securities law, private equity, and project finance.
A Kick-Start of Zia’s Amazing Entrepreneurial Journey
Zia is a law graduate from the renowned Cambridge & Masters of Laws at Harvard. She returned from Harvard and started her career in India as a junior counsel and practiced at the bar for almost a decade. While completing her extensive practice, Zia got a rich experience of the law segment with which she established her own boutique law firm called ‘Chambers of Zia Mody’, after finishing her practice. This was a beginning of her joyous entrepreneurial journey.
Zia and her colleagues would place a non-stop debate about legal propositions at a time when India was rising which became the wind beneath their seals. “I think my own skill was in running the firm is to be fair, transparent and communicate as much as I can. I think the goal is to have moral leadership which is the imperative to be a leader”, articulates Zia. She believes that her journey as an entrepreneur has not come to an end, and is still continuing. For Zia, her father is the only person who has had great impact on ensuring her value system in the profession. Also, her husband stood as a rock-support and ensured the success of her profession.
AZB & Partners Rendering its Unique Services
The key aspect that makes AZB unique is the average high quality of its lawyers, the nuanced expertise and domain of the partners, and a strong ability to be facilitative transactional lawyers. The uniqueness of the company’s proposition is also its superb skills set in litigation, competition, and forensic investigation.
AZB & Partners was established almost twenty-five years back as a small boutique which was named as the Chambers of Zia Mody consisting of about twelve people. Since then, the firm is accomplishing greater heights with each passing year and is proudly waving its flag as a Pan India Law Firm with over 400 lawyers.
Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks with Sanguinity
Risk-taking and entrepreneurship are inseparable from each other. To initiate own business, one has to put his/her career, finances, and mental as well as physical health at stake; which results into developing a successful entrepreneur. Zia, too, took several risks to withstand the adverse situations and speaking upon that she asserts, “The biggest career risk I have ever taken is to leave my job as a corporate associate in New York and come back to India to get married not knowing whether I will succeed in this profession, which was at that time clearly male- dominated.”
As we all know, life is not always easy. It is all about experiencing a tough fight between our hope and despair, optimism and frustration, and victory and defeat. The way we choose to think, feel, and act to the life’s challenges can often make a big difference. Likely, Zia sharply navigated her life by confidently surpassing every failure that came her way. “Some of my failures have been the inability to think long-term, to react negatively to situations which were partly caused by me and to not listen enough to some people who gave me advice were for my own good. What I have learned is to listen to people who genuinely have my interest at heart”, utters Zia.
Success-Tips from Zia
Zia is a hard-working entrepreneur, who strongly believes in her ability to see and remember numerous things at a time, and the intensity to stay perfect at every single step. She is a highly dedicated personality whose focus has always been on providing the best-of-the class advice to her clients. Asking her about what keeps her motivated all the time, Zia says, “The only thing that motivates me in difficult or down times is the assurance that things have to get better. As my mother says ‘God only tests those that He loves’.”
While sharing the success-tips with the young entrepreneurs, Zia advices them to successfully carry out their work, to create the window for people to walk into the room for different reasons and to continue to be the mentors. She deeply encourages the power of creative thinking and believes that it can be only enhanced when one is challenged positively and allow the space in the eco-system to do so.
Foreseeing a Future Full of Development and Contentment
While enquiring her about the measures she takes to ensure growth and development as an entrepreneur, Zia says, “I do delight daily in some learning that comes my way and any big challenge that a matter throws. I still take a lot of joy in new practices, new talent coming to AZB and lifting us to even higher levels.”
In the next five years, Zia not only aspires to expand her horizon as a leading entrepreneur but also hope to become a better grandmother and to spend more time with her grandchildren, which would add more colors to her life.
Source :-The 30 Inspiring Entreprenuers to watch in 2018
Zia Mody: An Illustrious Corporate Lawyer Incredibly Transforming the Law Industry
