Meet Vandana Luthra: One of India’s Most Celebrated Businesswoman

Vandana Luthra biography

Indian businesswoman and entrepreneur Vandana Luthra is the founder of VLCC Health Care Ltd, a beauty and wellness company with international representation. Vandana Luthra first opened VLCC in New Delhi in 1989, originally offering only weight-management services and skin and hair treatments. Now, over two decades later, it has 326 centers spread across 13 countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia as well as East Africa, the GCC region and the Middle East. Vandana Luthra VLCC Personal Care haircare and skincare products are sold through 72,000 outlets throughout India. VLCC employs 4,000 people, including:

• Beauty professionals
• Cosmetologists
• Medical professionals
• Nutrition counselors
• Physiotherapists

Any Vandana Luthra about page online will surely note how she was raised in an educated and accomplished family. Her father was a mechanical engineer and her mother ran Charitable Trust. From her childhood, Vandana Luthra always had a strong wish to help people, often accompanying her father on his work-related trips to Germany. On these trips, she noticed a stark contrast between the strong focus of health and wellness in Germany and the sheer lack of it in India. The desire to close this gap propelled her to Polytechnic for Women in New Delhi. After graduation, she completed her schooling in Germany, then traveled throughout the U.K. and Europe soaking up knowledge and skills in fitness, nutrition, beauty and skincare. 

Among her other roles, Vandana Luthra is the Beauty and Wellness Sector Skill Council (BWSSC) chairperson, the council’s first, appointed in 2014. The BWSSC is a training initiative under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana scheme backed by the government of India to provide vocational learning academies teaching beauty industry skills training to women with financial difficulties.

Vandana Luthra Awards and Accolades

In 2013, one big piece of Vandana Luthra news was the story of President of India Pranab Mukherjee presenting her the Padma Shri Award, the fourth-highest civilian honor in India, for her contributions to the fields of industry and trade. 

Other awards and accolades Vandana Luthra VLCC has received include the Asian Business Leaders Forum Trailblazer Award in 2012 and the Enterprise Asia Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2010. 

In 2016, Forbes Asia ranked her 26th in its list of 50 Power Businesswomen in the APAC region (including Asia, New Zealand and Australia.) This made her one of only eight women featured on that list who were from India. Fortune Magazine also featured her for five years consecutively (2011-2015) on its annual 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in India list. 

Vandana Luthra is the author of two books: Complete Fitness Program (2011) and A Good Life (2013.)

Any decent Vandana Luthra biography must also note her extensive charity work. In her role as VC of the NGO Khushii, she’s helped give scholarships to physically challenged and underprivileged individuals. Among the organization’s projects include building facilities for vocational training, telemedicine and youth education for about 3,000 kids, with midday meals included. 

Ask her about her journey, and she’ll tell you that one of the most significant lessons it’s taught her so far is to have a solid core of values for your business and remain steadfast to it always. She often advises young entrepreneurs that it takes years of commitment, dedication and hard work to establish a brand; the key to building one that lasts, she tells them, is to keep moving forward and never look back.

Vandana Luthra FAQ