Navya Naveli Nanda, entrepreneur and granddaughter of Amitabh Bachchan, has said that her late paternal grandmother Ritu Nanda was the first person who showed her what a woman running a business looked like, and that watching her work while growing up in Delhi was a defining influence on her own path into entrepreneurship.
Navya made the remarks on 17 August in Faridabad at the launch of the GenAI Ready Naari programme, an AI skilling initiative for women run by Nimaya Foundation, the organisation she co-founded with Samyak Chakrabarty.
Navya Nanda on Dadi Ritu Nanda
Speaking to ANI at the event, Navya said the women in her immediate family shaped how she thought about work and ambition from an early age.
"I am actually a girl from Delhi. I have seen my Dadi working many times, and I have got a lot of motivation from her in doing entrepreneurship because she was also an entrepreneur," she said.
Ritu Nanda, who passed away in 2020, was the eldest daughter of cinema legend Raj Kapoor and built a significant presence in the insurance business in India with Ritu Nanda Insurance Service Private Ltd. She was also the mother of actor Abhishek Bachchan's brother-in-law, making her a central figure in one of Bollywood's most prominent family networks.
Navya said the motivation she drew from her grandmother was part of a broader pattern of support from the women around her. "My mother, my aunt, my grandmother, all the women in my family, they have motivated me a lot and supported me a lot. I think because of that, I also want to make them proud," she said.
She also credited her mother Shweta Bachchan and her maternal grandmother Jaya Bachchan as key figures who encouraged her to build a career of her own.
