Newsmaker: Meet Meenakshi Malik of Air India, Leading Employees to Bid For the Airline

Meenakshi Malik is the woman behind a mega bid to buy Air India by a group of employees within the company. This consortium is bidding to acquire 51 percent of the airline's stake. Malik, who joined the board of the airline in June is Director (Commercial) for three years. Here's a look at Malik's career path:

Who is Meenakshi Malik?

1. Malik has been with Air India for 31 years. Before taking charge as the commercial director, she served the airline as executive director.

2. Malik joined the airlines as a management trainee in 1989 in Kolkata. She holds a BSc (Hons) in physics and an MBA from Utkal University in Odisha.

3. Her father Upendranath Mallik was a 1961-batch Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer, who served in senior positions in the Odisha government. Rajkumari Mallik, her mother, was a doctor.

4. Most recently, Malik and AI's top executives led the Vande Bharat mission in the wake of rising coronavirus cases to bring back Indians from pandemic-hit countries. The airline, so far, operated flights to 75 foreign destinations in 54 countries during the pandemic.

5. Malik, in October, tested positive for COVID and had been in quarantine. As per reports, almost half a dozen members of her team had also contracted the disease while executing the mission and were under medical observation.

6. As part of the bid, the employee led group of 219 people will contribute at least 100,000 rupees per head toward the bid. Malik's hope is that the remaining 49 percent will be held by a financial partner. Air India has been on sale since 2017 and has been struggling to keep its revenues going. According to Malik, its employees understand the airline better than anyone else. "We know the airline inside out, we know where the problems are. We’re not bidding to win or lose, we’re doing it because we believe we can run the airline well," she said on December 14.

“We always believed Air India can be a profitable set up,” said Malik. “The government has removed a huge part of the debt, so we thought who better than us? We know the airline inside out, we know where the problems are. We’re not bidding to win or lose, we’re doing it because we believe we can run the airline well.”

7. The employee led group is bidding against giants like Tata Sons and NRI entrepreneur Laxmi Prasad. The government will announce the names of the qualified bidders by December 28.