Sonali Aneja

Bright, vivacious and with an infectious zest for life- that’s what her team described her as, and yes it stood out most for us when we met Sonali Aneja.

We knew of her that she was born and educated in the heart of South Delhi; she told us that she is a Psychology Major and has also studied in the United States, before choosing to pursue her first entrepreneurial expression in the fashion business, over 30 years ago.

What we saw however was that her travel and experience across global markets, had made her a true style and industry icon – definitely seasoned and certainly recognised.

One can’t use just one word to describe Sonali Aneja; in our reading she is an entrepreneur, a strategist, an artist, an administrator and mother – She has worked hard in all her roles to epitomise ‘all woman’ and still tirelessly works towards raising the bar each day.

Sophisticated and charming, committed to her yoga and meditative practice, Sonali exudes both passion and inner stability. She shares that her bent towards spirituality was a precursor to her deeper need to become a full fledged dynamic life.

The answer to this innate need came to her when she met Siddharth Rao, Founder of the Ojas Group. ‘Profoundness of integrity must be understood, if we are to make such a claim!’, she asserts. Her association with him was ‘life changing’.

Ojas is a multi-business Holding Company, umbrella structure to the conglomerate, established in 2013. Spread through 3 continents, 4 countries and 6 states in India, Ojas has become a leading force, globally. Ojas has had a spectacular trajectory and is currently spanning 8 sectors.

It is pertinent to mention here that Ojas, has a simple succession plan. The businesses will neither devolve on lineage nor on pedigree – they will be passed down to professionally structured managements that’ll be both, competent to handle their scope, and play without losing focus of the Ojas fundamental premise.

Ojas’ philosophy echoes the company’s core vision of unleashing one’s true potential to carve a positive change and to augment the greater welfare of the nation and mankind as a whole.

Sonali thus found the wind beneath her wings in the structure and currently is looking at ventures across Real Estate and Design, Manufacture and Export, Lifestyle and Retail, Education and Training, Wealth and Finance.

Marrying the strength of Indian ‘know-how’ and specialties with international quality requirements, Sonali is a leading authority figure from the country, with a zeal to take India’s dominance across the world, much in keeping with the ethos at Ojas.

Highly sought after, she possesses obvious and enormous talent and specializes not only in growth and development of the companies, but also in reviving struggling business ventures into profitable operations through her uncompromising administrative, negotiation and transactional abilities.

The DNA of Ojas’s fashion apparel business - LB Expressions - stemming from her, sets the trends and tone in the offices of leading international luxury brands across the globe, as designs that are conceptualised and produced in India walk the ramp in the fashion capital of the world.

Her peers and team call her a strategic pioneer - Sonali’s word carries the weight of her wealth of exposure and commitment to excellence.

Those who she trains say she’s absolutely original, with an obsession with perfection, and her quest for the most magnificent creative outcome in any field with her demonstrated track record, make her one of a kind.

It would be no overstatement to say that there would be few to parallel her, and she thus was our easy pick for this felicitation.

A piece of advice that she has for youngsters today is- ‘With our strengths, we can establish an enterprise, but success comes to you only when your weaknesses are worked upon.’ We’d advise you to pay heed, as we congratulate her on this honour!