A healthy succession plan

Apollo Hospitals – a large family-run hospital chain in India – has decided to set up a family council to steer the business into the third generation of family management.

Company founder Dr Prathap Reddy is still chairman at the age of 80; he founded the first Apollo hospital in Chennai in 1983. Three generations are now working in the family business simultaneously.

Dr Reddy's four daughters all hold senior management positions. His eldest and second daughters, Preetha and Suneeta Reddy, are joint managing directors – Preetha appeared in Fortune magazine's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business list in 2010 and 2011.

Third daughter Shobana Kamineni is executive director and Sangita Reddy, the youngest, is operations director and also head of Apollo Philanthropy. Two of Dr Reddy's 10 grandchildren also work in management positions with more expected to join in the next few years.

Sangita told The Hindu Business Line: "[The council] will look into the values of Apollo, its heritage and come out with norms that ensure good governance, business growth, patient trust, working environment and fair shareholder returns."

She added: "The family council is in its formulation stage and the guidelines are being discussed."

Apollo now has 50 hospitals and has expanded into Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nigeria, Mauritius, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait and had revenues of 31.5 billion rupees (€436.4 million) in 2012.