Entrepreneur India – July 2019

36 l ENTREPRENEUR l JULY 2019

A

ward-winning

celebrity Chef Dipna

Anand co-owns

Brilliant in Southall and is

the owner of Dip in Brilliant,

a Punjabi café in Fulham,

next to Chelsea Football Club.

Her grandfather started the

first Brilliant restaurant in

Nairobi, Kenya, in the 1950s.

Her father, Gulu Anand,

was running the restaurant

in Kenya initially. Due to a

political issue in Kenya, they

relocated to London. Her

father started the restaurant

in Southall then with 36 seats.

Brilliant has grown from 36 to

a 250+ seater restaurant.

“I was good at food

technology and sports,’’ says

Anand. Her career took off

when she won a national

award on one of the food

technology projects – Low Fat

Indian Food - presented by the

British Nutrition Foundation.

Soon, Anand decided to go

to the University of London

to pursue food technology

in hospitality and catering.

Anand offered to teach Indian

cuisines at the university;

it has been 13 years now.

She won her second award

as Industry Personality of

the Year presented by David

Cameron. Anand’s philosophy

is simple. “I see my failures

as learning curves. I reflect

on what I learnt and how I

could improve further. For me,

failure is never a failure.”

THE ‘BRILLIANT’ CHEF

DIPNA ANAND, Chef

THE EDUCATION

TRANSFORMER

AKSHAY MUNJAL, President,

BML Munjal University

“I

never thought

in my wildest

dreams that

I will venture into

education sector,”

jokes Akshay Munjal,

a third generation

entrepreneur. Munjal

is the grandson of

Brijmohan Lall Munjal,

the founder of Hero

Group. BML Munjal

University, overseen by

Munjal, is named after

his grandfather.

With a background

in management,

Munjal had other plans.

He recalls, “I thought

I’ll do something very

glamorous in banking,

PE, equity research.

This was in 2006, I had

always prepared for

finance.” After working

for Merrill Lynch in

New York, he returned

to India in 2008.

Hero Mindmine, a

part of Hero Group’s

BPO service, was into

training and consulting

services. Till 2002-03,

Mindmine was doing

well. But later the

company nose-dived.

Munjal realized that

they were only service

providers and their

ability to control and

make decisions was

very little. “In 2011 we

decided to make a

big impact. You have

got to set up your

own institution and do

things differently. Till

this day I’m working

on the university full-

time,” says Akshay.

His grandfather’s

advice to “focus on

the basics” remains

Munjal’s guiding

principle.

FUSION DESSERT

Anand has produced a range of

unique Indian dessert-based ice

creams which include jalebi ice

cream, gulab jamun ice cream and

gajar halwa ice cream. These are

all available at Brilliant Restaurant

in Southall.

QUICK GUIDE

> BML Munjal University

is mentored by Imperial

College, London.

> It recently added BBA

in Family Business and

Entrepreneurship.

> Companies such as

Axis Bank, KPMG, Amazon,

IBM, visit the campus for

placements.