The talented Shaan S Khanna talks about her prolific career in events and striking a work-life balance beautifully.
She lives her life event-by-event. Shaan S Khanna’s tight-as-a-leotard schedule includes meetings clients, juggling social responsibilities and, of course, blogging about the newest places to eat and shop. The passionate entrepreneur and blogger works from home and absolutely loves it! Everyday she’s up by 7.30 am and is on her PC replying to mails for the first two hours, updating her blog www.spicysangria.com and then checking what the rest of her team is up to. During the day she’s out for meetings and occasionally manages to enjoy her lunch with a friend. “Work goes on till late evening with meetings and after a lot of coordination, I manage to go for a walk,” she shares.
Entrepreneur since 16
Since the age of 15, Shaan enjoyed planning her own birthday parties — from the guest list to the venue to décor — she took the call on every minute detail. She started her career at 16 when she would design handbags. However, she later decided to focus more on events. Her mother Sharmilla Khanna has already made a mark in the business for almost 20 years now. “I began working with mom and therefore I learnt a lot,” she says.
She is a people’s person and her organisational skills were always exemplary. And these two attributes led her to carve a flourishing career in organising exhibitions, parties and events. “I love putting things together. I’m a huge fan of exploring new places to eat, shop and new activities going on in the city therefore I decided to take this passion online and launched my blog,” she says.
Shaan also did an internship at L’Officiel magazine under Superna Motwane who helped her realise the path she wanted to take. “Working under her helped me think for myself, make decisions and that internship groomed me for the outside world and a job of my own,” she says with an air of conviction.
Two years ago she completed the ISB Women Entrepreneur course by Goldman Sachs, which was a turning point in her career. “From then on I would say, I looked at work very differently,” she shares.
Magic Rainbow
Early this year Nisha Agarwal, Superna Motwane and Shaan started an exhibition called Magic Rainbow which is especially dedicated to mums and kids. “We hosted the first one in March this year and elicited a great feedback. Encouraged by the success, we are organising the second one on November 28 at Palladium mall. Superna and Nisha are both mums of two and together we realised the need for an exhibition dedicated to tots! We have products ranging from clothes, shoes, bags, personalised gifting, stationery and food. Smaaash the entertainment destination at Lower Parel has joined hands with us to put this together and will be showcasing some of their activities for mums and kids at the mall which is something they’ve never done before. They have also launched their kids’ section called the Hoopla Zone and a Spa for Mums!”
Over the nine years Shaan has grown as a person and also as a professional. “So many of my ideas have materialised and are extremely successful today like my blog. I’m extremely lucky to work on Araaish which is an exhibition by Sharmilla Khanna, Mana Shetty and Isha Mehra in aid of Save the Children India, which has been a huge learning in my career too,” she says.
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