Feroze Gujral

Feroze Gujral is a philanthropist, art aficionado, businesswoman, columnist and media personality. Nominated one of India’s most beautiful women, she started her career as a fashion model, going on to become an international style icon, with a slew of style and beauty awards to her name.She presently runs two philanthropic organizations – the Gujral Foundation, founded in 2008 along with her husband Mohit Gujral, which primarily funds public projects on art, architecture, design and culture, and Outset India, a chapter of Outset UK, the contemporary art fund founded in 2001. She is on the founding board of Elle magazine and brand ambassador for Burberry India. She writes on lifestyle for Elle, Indian Express, Financial Chronicle, Vogue, Conde Nast Traveller, Marie Claire and Seminar

Feroze’s mother Viqar Ewari is half-Indian and half-British while her father George Ewari is half-Indian and half-Arab. She has two siblings – a brother, Hanut, and a sister, Anisha. Though rooted in the traditional Hyderabadi culture of the nawabs of yore, Feroze has had a cosmopolitan upbringing, having lived in many countries including Egypt, France and the United Kingdom.She is married into the Gujral family, to the well-known architect Mohit Gujral who is currently Vice-Chairman of DLF, one of India’s largest real estate company. Mohit is the son of the renowned painter Satish Gujral who is the elder brother of former Prime Minister of India, I.K. Gujral. Feroze and Mohit have two children – a son, Armaan, and a daughter, Alaiia, both currently studying in the US.

Feroze attended the Lawrence School, Sanawar, where she was the deputy head girl and won a President’s medal. She was a keen sportswoman, her skills extending today to golfing, diving, swimming, skiing, squash and shooting. She graduated from the Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi. She has also studied Law.

Feroze Gujral became a model at the age of 18, launching over 60 well-known brands in the 1990s including Palmolive, Lakme, Raymonds, Emami, Fair and Lovely, Black Velvet Whisky and Red and White cigarettes. One of her first advertisements, along with filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, was for Digjam Suitings. She has graced numerous magazine covers including Elle and Vogue and was the only Indian model to be featured on the cover of the newsmagazine, India Today. She has been the lead model and showstopper for designers such as Rohit Khosla, JJ Valaya, Kavita Bhartia and Suneet Varma and has made a few guest appearances in Bollywood films too. She has also anchored a television show titled ‘Tonight with Feroze’ in which she conducted interviews with well-known politicians, focusing on their softer side.

From 1987 to 2000, Feroze ran a successful design studio and export business dealing in bone china products and customized table accessories, exporting to over 14 countries, and had a store Fizzaro located in the elite Santushti shopping complex. In the year 2000, at the onset of the Internet boom, she was a founding partner with Broadcast India, funded by Enron among other investors, with this being the only live broadband streaming platform in India on news, cricket and Bollywood among other subjects. She is a director in their architecture and design company, Design Plus, founded by Mohit Gujral. She is founder and co-owner of The Production House, a fashion and design events solution company based in New Delhi and Mumbai, which has produced over 400 events for brands like Jaguar, Land Rover, Lakme India Fashion Week (LIFW), Xbox, and Nokia.

Mohit and Feroze Gujral, son and daughter-in-law of famed Indian Modernist Artist, Satish Gujral, set up the non-profit trust, focusing on contemporary cultural engagements with art, design and culture as its primary initiative.

The foundation has amongst other things, arranged the loan of ‘Aspinwall’- the primary location of the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2012 and 2014. The foundation has also supported the 55th Venice Biennale, South Asian artists at the 8th Berlin Biennale and the V. S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life (2014) exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

The foundation has also been funding various causes for several years including the prize for the most deserving design student at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), she has also been a guest professor at NIFT. The foundation also sponsors an art and a soccer prize for final year students at Gordonstoun School, UK, which allow them to do summer intensive courses at Central St. Martins and Manchester United respectively. The Gujral Foundation also funds and supports a forum for street children in Hyderabad, which includes a home for destitute boys that was started in 1989. The Foundation supports various other NGOs like Nanhi Chaun (girl child), Save the Children (malnutrition) and White Ribbon (safe childbirth). Feroze is a volunteer with Teach for India.

Feroze Gujral launched Outset India in 2011.

She is on the board of IGNCA and on the advisory board of the Kochi Biennale, and patron at various international art institutions.

She is an ambassador for World Wildlife Fund, with a particular interest in the welfare of the Indian elephant.