Fortune India 40 Under 40 2026: Anchit Nayar on scaling Nykaa beyond its founder-led roots

Nykaa is entering a new phase of growth as the next generation of the promoter family takes on a larger role in scaling the business, with Anchit Nayar drawing on his investment banking experience at Morgan Stanley to build systems and processes across the company.

Nayar, who spent around seven to eight years in investment banking in New York, returned to Nykaa in late 2018 to run its retail business. Speaking at the Fortune India 40 Under 40 event, he said the decision was driven by the opportunity to move from advising businesses to actually building one.

“As a banker, and I really enjoyed my time working in banking, it’s an incredible field to work in,” Nayar said. “But you are advising clients on what they should do. And what was really exciting about Nykaa was the chance to actually become an operator and to make decisions and to be able to build something.”

From Morgan Stanley to building Nykaa

Nayar said he and his sister Adwaita did not grow up in a traditional family-business environment. Their parents were both bankers, and the initial plan was to build independent careers.

“I think it’s good for parents to expose the kids to have a chance to build something on their own and build their own independent financial independence,” he said.

But watching his mother, Falguni Nayar, build Nykaa from scratch eventually changed his plans.

“I was always watching Nykaa grow from the US and seeing the kind of work my mother was doing,” Nayar said. “It was definitely difficult to resist finally the pull of having the opportunity to build something from scratch.”

He returned in 2018 to lead the retail business, which gave him exposure to India's consumption trends and the operational challenges of building a nationwide retail network.

Different roles for the next generation

Nayar said his approach to the business differs from that of his mother. While Falguni Nayar is comfortable building businesses from the ground up, he sees his strength in scaling businesses that have already established themselves.

“I like to say that I have the ability to take things from, say, one plus as opposed to zero to one,” he said.

He added that he probably would not have been as useful during Nykaa's earliest phase. “Could I have been helpful very early on in Nykaa? Probably not. I would have probably been unhelpful more than helpful to her.”

His Morgan Stanley experience, he said, has helped him understand the importance of processes, systems and organisational culture as Nykaa grows.

“I’ve learned how large-scale corporates operate and the benefits that process and building the right systems and having the right culture can bring to the company,” he said.

Nayar said he focuses on businesses that require scale, while his mother and sister focus more on newer businesses.

“I focus on the businesses that need a bit more scale,” he said. “Athveta and my mother look at more new-age businesses and getting those off the ground.”

Nykaa's model is different from global beauty players

Nayar said Nykaa does not fit neatly into any traditional global beauty or retail category.

“When we went for the IPO in 2021, we did a roadshow and we met with a lot of investors globally,” he said. “And they would ask us, who is your comp? It was very difficult for us to find an answer because we actually don’t look like any of the traditional beauty companies globally.”

Nykaa combines beauty brands with retail, while operating across online and offline channels.

“A lot of beauty companies globally are brand companies and not retail. And then others are retail but not brand. So we are doing both brand and retail,” Nayar said. “Some are predominantly offline heavy. We are online plus offline.”

Nayar said the company has instead tried to adapt global best practices to India's unique market.

“You can’t lift and shift a playbook and try to replicate it here. You need to build for India,” he said.

Beauty growth won't be limited to premiumisation

Nayar also pushed back against the idea that India's beauty opportunity is simply a premiumisation story.

“We have one of the lowest per capita spends on beauty anywhere in the world,” he said, pointing to rising affordability, availability and awareness.

He expects India's beauty market to have a “multi-decade growth story”, with demand across price segments.

“It’s not going to be restricted to any particular price point,” he said. “You’ll have demand across the spectrum, all the way from value to mass to prestige.”

He said Nykaa's reach across India's consumer segments gives it an advantage in capturing this growth.

“We’ve managed to appeal to customers all the way from, you know, tier three to tier one and from value to luxury,” Nayar said.

Resilience is the biggest lesson

Nayar said one of his biggest lessons from Nykaa has been the importance of resilience and taking difficult decisions with a long-term view.

Reflecting on the Covid-19 pandemic, he said the company resisted pressure to take short-term measures such as layoffs when its retail operations were severely affected.

“My mother said that, look, I’ve built this business not for the next one year, two years, but for many, many decades,” he said.

“And I think she had the resilience and also the foresight to say that, look, this too shall pass.”

For Nayar, that experience shaped his view of entrepreneurship. “I would rather talk less about entrepreneur as a noun, but more about being entrepreneurial, which is an adjective,” he said.

His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs was to focus on resilience, patience and long-term thinking.

“I would recommend to those who want to be entrepreneurial to focus on building resilience and patience and thinking more long-term than short-term.”