Founder & CEO, Nykaa.com

Falguni Nayar, Founder & CEO at Nykaa.com quit a successful career in finance to chase her dream of building India’s premier online retailer for beauty and wellness. 

With a start in early 2012, Nykaa launched its online portal Nykaa.com in December 2012 and has since progressed to offering 150 of a projected 250 leading brands on a single platform. The firm’s long term plans include an Omni channel approach to serve India’s beauty and wellness needs; towards this, the online store was unveiled in January 2013, and the firm’s travel retail and high street stores will be introduced before the end of the year. 

Ms Nayar has spent 19 years as an Investment Banker and Broker with the Kotak Mahindra Group. After an eight year stint with the group’s international operations in the US and UK, Falguni headed the group’s Institutional Equities business overseeing Sales, Trading, ECM and F&O trading. In 2005, she took over as Managing Director of the investment banking business where she successfully spearheaded the firm to be India’s leading IPO banker and was instrumental in closing a number of successful M&A deals for the firm including sale of Hutchison to Vodafone, and the Bharti – Walmart JV for Retail amongst others. She serves as India Advisor at Temasek, subsidiary of Temasek Holding Singapore and is an Independent Member on the Tata Motors Board.

Prior to joining the Kotak Mahindra Group, Falguni worked as a consultant with A. F. Ferguson & Co. She holds a Masters degree in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where she majored in Finance. She graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics. Falguni has received many accolades through her career including the FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO) award for the top woman achiever in the field of banking and Business Today award recognizing her as top 25 women in business. She was a Founding Member of the Asia Society in India.