Vandana Luthra,

Back in the late ’80s when Vandana Luthra launched VLCC, the biggest challenge was one of perception. People were familiar with beauty parlours, but the idea of a Transformation Centre was perceived as futuristic. Funding was definitely hard to come by, especially for first-gen entrepreneurs. But nothing could deter Luthra who got a small loan and started with one centre in Delhi. “At that time there were hardly any women entrepreneurs. It was a male-dominated environment. I had to face a lot of criticism, a lot of people tried to ensure that I did not succeed and grow. The only thing I believed in was that my concept was unique, unusual and it was being introduced in India for the first time,” she says. From the very beginning Luthra took a scientific approach and started working with doctors. The other thing that Vandana feels worked in her favour was the branding of VLCC as a clinic as opposed to a glamorous transformation centre. Things improved over the years and the brand was able to build consumer trust and stickiness. Today VLCC is spread across 330 locations in 150 cities and 14 countries. Besides wellness centers, VLCC also manufactures a wide range of skin care, body care and hair care products and runs one of Asia’s largest network of skill development institutes in beauty and nutrition.

A grandmother to three children, Luthra believes it’s possible to create a perfect balance between home and career. “There are tremendous learnings from running a home which can be substituted in a successful enterprise with its various stake holders.” alguni Nayar always wanted to be an entrepreneur. But it was only after putting in over 18 years at Kotak Mahindra Capital Co., as managing director and head of its institutional equities business that Nayar finally took the plunge. Nykaa was founded in April 2012 much against prevailing wisdom that both ecommerce and beauty were not a great business. “During the time I spent living in the US, I observed that there was a lot of brand proliferation in beauty and hence multi-brand beauty retail was the way to go for beauty. Since beauty needs are all encompassing, to matter in the industry