Fay­ola K J Ras­er

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Lila Nan­hu-Ali’s jour­ney in­to the skin­care in­dus­try has been shaped by a blend of aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment, pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, and an en­dur­ing pas­sion for aes­thet­ics. Now 34, she has spent the past five years build­ing a beau­ty and well­ness busi­ness she launched in Jan­u­ary 2020.

With a back­ground in Pub­lic Sec­tor Man­age­ment and an MBA in Lead­er­ship and Strat­e­gy, Nan­hu-Ali ini­tial­ly pur­sued a ca­reer in the pub­lic sec­tor, work­ing for over four years at the Min­istry of En­er­gy. How­ev­er, her long-stand­ing in­ter­est in skin­care led her to tran­si­tion in­to the aes­thet­ics field, where she pur­sued ad­vanced train­ing and ul­ti­mate­ly be­came a med­ical aes­theti­cian.

The de­ci­sion to leave a sta­ble ca­reer and start Sug­ar Spa and Beau­ty Lounge was not an easy one. “Start­ing my own busi­ness was both ex­cit­ing and nerve-wrack­ing,” she re­calls, re­flect­ing on the un­cer­tain­ties of en­tre­pre­neur­ship. That un­cer­tain­ty was soon com­pound­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, which forced aes­thet­ic busi­ness­es like hers to shut down just months af­ter open­ing.

De­spite the set­back, she per­sist­ed, and by the time re­stric­tions be­gan lift­ing, she ex­pand­ed her op­er­a­tion from a sin­gle treat­ment room to a full-ser­vice spa with a hair sa­lon.

Nan­hu-Ali’s ex­per­tise now spans both tra­di­tion­al fa­cials and med­ical-grade treat­ments. Her cer­ti­fi­ca­tions—earned both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly—re­flect her ded­i­ca­tion to stay­ing at the fore­front of the beau­ty in­dus­try.

“En­tre­pre­neur­ship has taught me that men­tal­ly, your busi­ness nev­er clos­es,” she says, ac­knowl­edg­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with lead­ing a team and main­tain­ing high ser­vice stan­dards. Man­ag­ing staff, over­see­ing day-to-day op­er­a­tions, and en­sur­ing top-tier client ex­pe­ri­ences have all been part of her learn­ing curve.

Bal­anc­ing these de­mands has been one of the biggest chal­lenges she has faced, yet she con­sid­ers adapt­abil­i­ty and dis­ci­pline key to her suc­cess. Look­ing back, she sees the spa’s abil­i­ty to ex­pand and of­fer a com­pre­hen­sive range of ser­vices as a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment.

“One of the ma­jor high­lights has been build­ing a loy­al cus­tomer base who trust us with their skin­care and well­ness needs and see­ing my staff thrive and grow with­in the busi­ness.”

As she looks to­ward the fu­ture, Nan­hu-Ali is fo­cused on evolv­ing, ex­pand­ing her of­fer­ings, and keep­ing up with ad­vance­ments in beau­ty and well­ness treat­ments.

“I want to keep push­ing the bound­aries of what’s pos­si­ble in the beau­ty and well­ness in­dus­try and stay at the fore­front of in­no­va­tion while main­tain­ing the high stan­dards we’ve set.”

Her com­mit­ment to on­go­ing ed­u­ca­tion, cou­pled with a vi­sion for growth, sig­nals her in­tent to con­tin­ue shap­ing the in­dus­try in T&T.

Five years in, Nan­hu-Ali’s ex­pe­ri­ence high­lights both the chal­lenges and re­wards of en­tre­pre­neur­ship. Her jour­ney un­der­scores the im­por­tance of re­silience, strate­gic think­ing, and a pas­sion for one’s craft—qual­i­ties that con­tin­ue to de­fine her path for­ward.