#ShareTheSpotlight: Ghazal Alagh puts the spotlight on three women entrepreneurs

Note to readers: Storyboard18's Share The Spotlight aims to highlight inspirational stories of women who continue breaking barriers and setting the precedent for other women marketers, entrepreneurs and communication specialists.

The initiative aims to kick off a movement where people from across these communities step up and share their spotlight with other women. They could be women in their team or any other team, a new group or previous one, from a past workplace or the current one.

Share The Spotlight calls on us all to come out and share words of praise and encouragement for each other, appreciating and acknowledging the contributions of so many people who make businesses, brands and workplaces better. Learn and understand how to face challenges and seize opportunities while bringing along others on the path to progress.

This is just the beginning of a long journey to spotlight individuals who are empowering others and bringing change and growth for all. Together we rise.

A corporate trainer turned artist and now a mompreneur Ghazal Alagh, co-founder and chief innovation officer, Honasa Consumer Limited, entered the direct-to-consumer space in 2016. Her company owns D2C brand Mamaearth that is aimed at providing chemical-free babycare products to young mothers as she saw this need gap as a mother herself. Alagh is responsible for product development and community management at the company where she works closely with a large number of mothers to develop a product line that addresses problems that moms face on a daily basis. She also appeared on the business TV reality show Shark Tank Season 1.

Read more here: Women’s Day: Here's what happened when we asked people to Share The Spotlight (Part One)

With a Bachelors in Information Technology and Intensive Courses in Modern Art, Design and Applied Arts from New York Academy of Arts, Ghazal started her career with NIIT as a Corporate Trainer. As a part of her role, Ghazal trained managers and engineers from various IT companies in SQL, J2ME, and Oracle.

For her the biggest achievement of her career is having built a safe, toxin-free brand like Mamaearth.

“We have grown over the years purely on consumer demand and love for the products,” she says.

Alagh believes that women should believe in themselves and have faith in their abilities.

Another key lesson is to never shy away from asking for help.

Read more here: Women’s Day: Here's what happened when we asked people to Share The Spotlight (Part Two)

“Often, people feel asking for help is a sign of weakness but it is actually a sign of great strength and intent to learn. Lastly, stay consistent and persistent. There is nothing that one can’t achieve, if they stay consistent with their efforts,” she shares.

She firmly believes that failures in life are nothing but experiments that did not work.

“I strongly feel that failures only make you better informed and teach something on the way. Instead of letting these setbacks pull you down, one should take a step back, identify the learning points, and create an action plan which will help you move forward,” she notes.

Sharing the spotlight

“Young female founders who are building great businesses - Ahana Gautam of Open Secret, Ayushi Gudwani of FS Life (prev. Fable Street) and Disha Singh from Zouk. I think the work they are doing is phenomenal and their efforts towards building the business is exemplary. They deserve to be recognised and appreciated.”

Before she signs off, Alagh says she would like “to recognize all working mothers, who might not be getting equal support from their families or partners. It’s hard.”