For decades, Shabana Azmi has been a leading actress in Indian cinema. She has starred in many of that country’s most popular and acclaimed films, including the groundbreaking Fire in 1996, about a lesbian relationship between two sisters-in-law. At age 66, Azmi’s screen skills remain much in demand, such as her prominent role in the recent BBC miniseries Capital.
But Azmi’s accomplishments have gone way beyond the cinematic, using her leverage as a celebrity and a seat in the Parliament of India to help further the rights of women and girls, advocate for better housing for the poor, and fight intolerance and religious extremism.
All of which makes her seemingly an unusual interview subject for Harvard Business School’s Creating Emerging Markets series, sponsored by the HBS Business History Initiative, which has interviewed many leaders of the largest corporations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Why Azmi?
“India has the world’s largest cinema industry, and it exercises an enormous cultural impact within the country,” says Geoffrey Jones, the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History. “Shabana Azmi has long been a central figure in the industry, and was able to provide unique insights on how it worked, and how it has changed. And as a woman, a Muslim, and a social activist, she provides a powerful role model of diversity.”
