Smriti Irani: Politician, philanthropist, and social innovator

FORMER CABINET MINISTER Smriti Irani has had a hectic day of shoot on the sets of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi in Mumbai’s Film City. But in between shots she effortlessly manages to get out of the character of the famed ‘Tulsi Virani’ and talks about her SPARK 100K Collective (a part of the Alliance For Global Good–Gender Equity and Equality that she founded in 2024), through which she aspires to empower 100,000 women entrepreneurs across 300 cities with funds and the capacity to scale. “By the way, Tulsi also becomes an entrepreneur in the second chapter of Kyunki,” she smiles. She quickly goes back to the Spark 100K conversation—“My goal is to list at least 200 of these enterprises on the stock exchange.”

The former minister’s narrative of women empowerment has clearly evolved in the last couple of years. Her perspective of financial inclusion of women is not just about getting more women into the workforce. It is also about empowering them to become job creators. “I decided to deviate a major part of my resources to enable women to own businesses themselves,” Irani explains. The women entrepreneurs in the SPARK 100K fold have run businesses for at least three years. The focus is to help them scale, connect them with global supply chains, and help them market themselves better.