Alia Bhatt isn’t just a Bollywood star—she’s an entrepreneur who is rewriting the rules

Alia Bhatt has all the reasons to be happy. By the time she turned 32, she was a successful actor and producer and a successful entrepreneur and investor. And this is reflected in her being a regular on Fortune India's Most Powerful Women in Business (MPW) list. This is the third consecutive year that she is on the list.

Alia, after making her debut as an actor in Student of the Year in 2012, she delivered powerful performances with Highway, Raazi, Udta Punjab, Darlings, and Gangubai Kathiawadi— which got her critical and commercial success along with the National Award for Best Actress.

Off camera, Alia has launched her own production house, Eternal Sunshine Productions, which has backed the Amazon Prime web series Poacher and the action film Jigra, among other projects. She is also the first Indian celebrity to be appointed by the House of Gucci as their Global Brand Ambassador; she was also appointed the Global Ambassador for L'oreal Paris last year. In 2024, Alia turned entrepreneur with sustainable kids wear brand Ed-a-mamma. “We started Ed-a-mamma with pretty much just that—a solid identification that India needed a home-grown sustainable clothing brand for kids,” she says. “I didn’t know everything about building a business then—in fact, I still continue to learn everyday but what held us strong was our passion to build something that was authentic and true to its promise.”

Alia also turned author in 2024 with the launch of a children's storybook titled Ed Finds A Home, the first publishing venture under Ed-a-mamma. “I think what makes me happy is that we are seeing such an entrepreneurial boom in the country with the youth, the first-generation entrepreneurs with both men and women leading from the front,” she says. “As a business owner and an investor, and a person who truly believes the story behind a brand is possibly its biggest differentiator—it gives me immense joy to see young India with such a tremendous entrepreneurial zeal, a spirit to identify a need gap and create something around it.”

After having started her business venture, Alia has since expanded her merchandise portfolio into a few more things so as to enable children engage themselves with eco-friendly products.  “For my business baby, Ed-a-Mamma, the idea is to create a one-stop-solution for everything sustainable, joyful and friendly for kids. We started with clothing and have already ventured into toys, books, bedding and more,” she says. “The idea is to create a larger umbrella where we keep adding elements that cater to a child’s universe to make their precious growing up years as fun & planet-friendly as we can,” she says. In 2023, Isha Ambani-led Reliance Retail acquired a 51% stake in Ed-a-Mamma.

In addition to being an actor, producer and entrepreneur, Alia dons another hat—that of an investor. She has made successful investments in brands such as Nykaa, Phool.Co, StyleCracker and SuperBottoms. So, what is her investment mantra? “For investments, honestly, I have always gone and (and continue to go) with two things—one is the story behind the brand—its value system and what it stands for. Secondly, is my gut…” she says. “I rely strongly on intuition. For me, all investments that I have made or will make in the future are very close to me and hence it’s critical that I resonate with the brand that I chose to be a part of.”

Alia made her Hollywood debut with Netflix's Heart of Stone alongside Gal Gadot in 2023. Up next is Alpha, an action film with Yash Raj Productions, and Love and War, a classic romantic musical drama which will mark her second collaboration with Sanjay Leela Bhansali. 

Fortune India's MPW list celebrates those inspiring women achievers who have broken barriers.