India has always been known as a Land for Business and opportunity. Along with its great atmosphere, conducive facilities, cooperative Government, Tech-enabled infrastructure and colossal measure of manpower, India has become a centre point for developing trade. Business is now succeeding from the Front and Indian Women have left no stone unturned to make the most out of it.
Making a booming career in every field and leading their firms to the top, women have done it all. Without anyone’s input or perception, women have created their mark by establishing their organizations in the past. In a country like India where working women are tremendously dismissed by a portion of society, on the other hand, certain women have taken great flights to achieve the success they deserve.
Here’s a list of 10 Women Entrepreneurs we believe are leading their businesses in a pathbreaking style and have become an inspiration in society with their flexibility, creativity, and thoughtful and promising career trajectories. Take a look:
Aditi Gupta - Menstrupedia
Very few entrepreneurs in the world start their journey to make a change. A change that could solve a real problem for millions of people out there. Aditi Gupta is one of those entrepreneurs. Her small initiative has helped hundreds of girls out there to get an education which many Indians don’t like to talk about - Menstruation or the 'chums' as we colloquially refer to it.
There was a time when Indian families nearly ostracized the women of the house during their periods - with the female member not allowed to enter the kitchen or the pooja room. Some of us are surprised to see this happen now too and not just in rural households but many families staying out of so-called educated urban areas.
Aditi was born into a family of such a kind. Her childhood was spent experiencing alienation during 'those days of the month.' Sleep in a separate area, wash clothes separately, and not allowed to participate in any worship activity - this was pretty much the norm for generations in her family. Through Menstrupedia she decided to change this. Bas! But she didn't do it in a preachy boring manner. A Hindi comic book with her husband Tuhin Patel was her chosen form of communication.
Within 2 years span, Aditi was listed in the Forbes 20 under 20 list for her commendable job in breaking the taboos about Menstruation in India. Today, Menstrupedia has educated over 10,00,000 girls and trained 10,000+ educators to spread awareness about puberty, menstruation, and hygiene.
Upma Kapoor- Teal & Terra
After working in the corporate sector for 15 years Upma Kapoor left her cushy job to venture into the beauty industry. Entrepreneurship was always her back up and that inspired her to create Teal & Terra. She founded the organization from her savings and help from family and friends.
The company was founded on the strong age-old proven roots of Ayurveda. The products are organic and Teal & Terra ensures that they price their products smartly so that these are affordable to even those who cannot spend thousands on their beauty regime every month. Within a short period, Teal &Terra managed to create a position in the beauty market and was able to sustain itself with a chunk of its revenue coming from repeat buyers.
Richa Kar- Zivame
After her work experience at SAP Retail where one of her clients was Victoria’s Secret and Richa got an opportunity to explore the Indian lingerie market, Richa did come to understand that lingerie shopping or let's just call it what it is - underwear shopping - was not an easy task. Somewhat awkward one could say - Both for the consumer as well as for the shopkeeper.
But what if there was a way to get past this awkwardness of the physical shopping experience but retain the expertise and the ability to get an understanding of the suitability to the self, without actually going to the store? Hence born, was Zivame in 2011. Richa co-founded Zivame with her friend Kapil Karekar despite pushback from her own family regarding a seemingly outlandish unconservative idea.
What started out as a small business, grew exponentially bringing a huge wave of online lingerie shopping for Indian women. The company secured funding from investors including IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital, and Unilazer Ventures.
Falguni Nayar- Nykaa
Falguni Nayar simply tops every list of successful entrepreneurs in India. She has become synonymous with woman power in Indian business circles as the Founder of the Beauty brand, Nykaa. Having served in powerful positions even during her corporate stint - Venture capital investor and merchant banker at Kotak Mahindra Group, Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Capital after graduating from the prestigious IIM Ahmedabad - Falguni is one unstoppable woman.
We mean, who leaves a secure job at 50 and decides to head straight into a business she has no experience of? But that's Ms Nayar for us. The story of Ms Nayar and her brand is phenomenal and inspiring. The company witnessed a growth of 100% year after year and was also listed on India's stock exchanges recently. Nykaa now boasts over 1000+ beauty and luxury brands with a valuation of $13 Billion. In 2020, Nykaa became the first Indian unicorn that was led by a woman.
Vani Kola – Kalaari Capital
A successful venture capitalist is one who has grown a business oneself and understands the trials of a founder. Vani is that ex-founder turned investor. An Electrical Engineering Graduate from Osmania University, Vani went on to do her Masters at Arizona State University. She worked with some of the known tech companies before starting off RightWorks. But she didn't stop there. After selling RightWorks in 2001, she started Nth Orbit, a company dealing with supply chain software development in San Jose. Their software called Certus was purchased by PepsiCo giving her the capital and the expertise she needed to support similar others with their dreams.
Vani decided to come back to India after 22 years in 2006 and founded Indo-US Venture Partners (IVP), in partnership with New Enterprise Associates (NEA) alongside Vinod Dham. After four years, she went solo and rebranded her firm as Kalaari Capital. Kalaari focused on investing in early-stage, tech-based startups across India. Today, Kalaari has built a niche for itself - A venture capital firm that has over 200 assets under it and has raised a capital of over $740 million. Some of her portfolio companies are the biggest names in the startup industry - WinZO, CashKaro, Dream11, Active.ai, and Industrybuying.
Priya Paul - Park Hotels
Priya Paul is one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in India. She comes from a prestigious business family, Apeejay Surrendra Group. After completing her graduation in Economics from Wellesley College in the U.S, she joined the family business at the marketing Division of Park Hotels. After suffering two losses in the family at a very young age and with very little experience, Priya was left to manage all three hotels of The Park – a huge challenge that she solemnly took up.
Today she owns a chain of six hotels across major cities including Kolkata, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Visakhapatnam. She leads a revolution in India’s hospitality industry with her innovation, strong will, and spontaneity. She credits meditation as the tool that helps her stay calm and motivated. She is also a recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Padma Shri in 2012.
Vandana Luthra VLCC
Started back in the year 1989 on a small bank loan with a focus on health and beauty in New Delhi, VLCC has now spread its wings to 11 countries in Southeast Asia, the GCC Region, and more recently East Africa. The company also has two manufacturing units, one in Haridwar, India, and another in Singapore. Entrepreneurship then was not an easy thing for women to do. And VLCC struggled with that fact in its initial stages.
She often had to convince doctors and the medical fraternity about the concept of wellness. Convincing them meant she had to recruit a variety of experts in the beauty, health, and fitness fields to show that holistic healthcare would never fade away. With the rise and growth of the firm, she was later identified by Fortune India as the 33rd most powerful Indian female entrepreneur. Today she stands as an expert in the field even functioning as the Chairperson of the Beauty & Wellness Sector Skill Council for the Government of India.
Kalpana Saroj – Kamani Tubes
Starting her work in a garment factory to support her family Kalpana successfully started a tailoring business using government loans for backward caste people and launched schemes to help the unemployed. She then entered into the real estate business and in a short period, earned Rs. 4 crores from the property business.
With Kamani Tubes, Ms Saroj found her true success as she turned it around from a sick company to one of the leading organizations in the copper products business. She is credited with steering the company back to profits and is currently the Chairperson of the company. She is also the recipient of the Padma Shri Award for Trade and Industry in 2013 and was appointed by the Government of India to the board of directors of Bhartiya Mahila Bank, a bank primarily for women.
Adetee Agarwaal- Pink Aprons
After working as an SAP, and ABAP consultant and Software Engineer, Adetee Agarwal quit her job and launched her own company Pink Aprons. A platform that empowers women to home chefs, and transforms them into food entrepreneurs in 5 minutes. Through Pink Aprons, Adetee is triggering a home-cooked food revolution, and empowering foodies to seamlessly order genuine, and authentic homemade food from thousands of home chefs. For now, Pink Aprons is serving in Pune and have already become one of the biggest platforms for ordering home-cooked food.
Within two years, Pink Aprons successfully delivered 50,000 orders and convinced 50,000 users to join their platform. More than 1000 home chefs from Pune have already joined Pink Aprons and selling their homemade food to a vast audience.
Harini Ramachandran- Antano & Harini
Also known as ‘Singer Megha’ in the film industry Harini Ramachandran is recognized as a playback singer who has collaborated with many notable music directors, including Academy Award winner A. R. Rahman. She has written over 75 songs and 200 commercial jingles written in various languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, and Oriya.
Harini Ramachandran is the Co-Founder of Antano & Harini, one of the world’s largest one-on-one mentoring platforms, with over 50,000 breakthroughs to date. Excellence Installations Technology (EIT), developed by the company, identifies and enhances the Core Capabilities required to Launch a Legacy. “Launch Your Legacy”, the brand’s flagship offering helps an artiste to launch a legacy in three years that could otherwise take a lifetime to build, if one is lucky. She aims to use the technology of NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) and its applications to empower underprivileged children. Her work though has already begun around this dream - She currently helps several tone-deaf, rhythm-deaf people sing which is hitherto an unheard-of, under-experienced space that Harini is championing.
It is said, women entrepreneurs are not just women or entrepreneurs alone. They are beacons of light and hope. They are the kind of women who make other women want to up their game. And these women are definitely some of those we could all look up to in our journeys.
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