Nhea Private Limited

The origins of Nhea lie in the collaborative efforts of two women from very different backgrounds, fighting to make the modern woman feel more confident, more in-command, more powerful as she soldiers on in her life. Sruti Mitra, who had been an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies in Pune for over a decade, had heard of Dr. Geeta Bora’s efforts to promote the use of biodegradable sanitary napkins in and around the slums in Pune. Feeling strongly about the need to take the effort around menstrual health and hygiene further, she advised her students at the institute to engage with Dr. Bora’s NGO and build on their classroom learning with effective field work. When Sruti and Geeta finally met, they hit it off pretty quickly, passionate as they both were about women’s issues. They saw personal wellness and skincare as a woman’s basic right, instead of a privilege, and believed that superior quality, sustainable solutions for it should be accessible to all. What they also realized they had in common was a hunger to start a business. At 46, having spent years working for multinationals before turning to academia, while also witnessing her father’s entrepreneurial journey as he scaled up the family business multifold, Sruti had been mulling for some time to take the leap herself. Dr. Bora, at 43, had run her NGO long enough to realize that the near-constant dearth of funds was never going to allow her to scale up the impact. Armed with a PhD in IT management and close to a decade of professional experience, she had also begun to feel the need to deploy her significant research capabilities to make an immediate, practical impact on the ground. The only way out was a self-sustaining business. So when they landed on the idea of a natural menstrual cramp reliever, the seeds of Nhea - Natural Holistic Ethical Aromatherapy - were sown. The beauty and wellness brand was finally founded in February 2020.