00:00I used to think earlier that we had to conform, now I do it more for myself,
00:06so I actually go all out just because I want to.
00:13Today we are at the residence of Seema Ved. She is the founder and chairwoman of Apparel Group.
00:19Our focus is not on finding out what she does in the boardroom, but more about what is her
00:24persona like, what's her day in the life of Seema Ved and what are her pet peeves.
00:29Does she like Bollywood movies? Does she love Korean drama? Who does she idolize the most?
00:34So this is your way to know Seema Ved the person.
00:37So I was born in Africa, but my father brought me here in the 70s and honestly,
00:42I don't give this country, the leadership enough credit, but the way they have shown us
00:49how visionary they can be, what they've done with this city, what they've done with this place.
00:54I think underlying all of our successes is that. I think we need to realize that if we weren't
01:01living in this kind of a city where the leadership of the country wants to show you how to excel,
01:08wants to show you how to grow, wants to show you become that absolute global company,
01:13I don't think we would have reached this point in our lives. And more than that,
01:18honestly, like I was surrounded by self-made men. I saw my father. Then after that, you know,
01:23I saw my husband's father and they're all self-made stories. My husband's family
01:28came to the region in 1904, where his great, great grandfather came as I think he was a chef.
01:34So to get from that to this is quite, and I know I say this a lot about myself,
01:40but I couldn't have done it without my husband or my father.
01:43I think both of them have really steered the course of my life.
01:47Like my husband, as I said recently, he's like the wind beneath my wings.
01:51You know, if he doesn't, if he's not there, I can't fly. Absolutely.
01:55He lets me do all my crazy and my other stuff as well. So he's there for me,
02:01like when I had to do high tea with Seema Ved or when I wanted to do high tea with Seema Ved.
02:06He was and not just that, he stuck up.
02:09Exactly. He stuck up a 10 meter by 4 meter billboard of his wife's face on Sheikh Zayed
02:15Road. I know I was on Sheikh Zayed Road, 10 meters by 4 meters. My kids on the way to school,
02:21it was like a little detour for them and their friends. They would stop, take a picture with
02:26the board. I was thrilled because he let me do my crazy. So he let me do my creative stuff.
02:31He let me do my crazy stuff. But he also then makes sure that I come back to work.
02:37He's always pulled me back after every child that I've had after a couple of years. He would give
02:41me a few years to slack off and then he would be like, you need to come back to work. I need
02:46you at work. So I don't know too many men who are secure enough to do that. I don't know too
02:52many men who are secure enough to let their wives shine. And then on top of that, I don't know too
02:56many men who say, okay, you know what, I'm going to pull you back into work, into my world and I
03:01want you to be a big part of it. So I'm really grateful. I love people. I absolutely love
03:08observing people, getting to know people and getting to know different cultures is my thing.
03:13So I'm a massive Netflix buff, massive Netflix buff. I end up watching and I watch Korean shows.
03:22I love Korean shows. The best part is like, to me, that's now inciting me to go check out Korea.
03:28And I know that K-beauty is off the charts. So I'm thinking, hey, it's like dual accomplishment,
03:36right? Like I get to go see Korea and I get to check out the whole business angle to it. The
03:41thing, it's not about Bollywood or K-dramas. I just go through phases where for me this time,
03:47it's all about K-dramas. Maybe by the time we talk next, it's all about Bollywood again. So,
03:52you know, funnily enough, I think because I grew up watching my father, who would every weekend
03:58take me to a supermarket because that's what he did. He did a chain of supermarkets. So every
04:02weekend we'd go to a supermarket and he'd check the shelves because in those days there was no
04:07automated expiry dates, etc. So he had to physically manually check that the boys were on top of it.
04:13Watching him do that for me now, I don't think I have, sadly for my kids as well, I don't think we
04:20have a demarcation that work ends here and family time begins here. For us, it's all intermingled.
04:27Like it's all entangled up. We tend to take our kids to work. So for me, we've never really
04:33separated the two. We've never said, okay, this is family time or this is work time. I just feel
04:38with my kids, if I ever feel like I'm missing time with them, I make up for it by just taking
04:44them along. So I've had my middle child who's established her own 100% sustainable athleisure
04:50wear at 15 and now she's 17 going to uni. I've had her in most of my marketing meetings.
04:57So she now understands a lot of the terms. She knows how to handle people. She knows how to talk
05:03to them. She knows what she's looking out for. So for me, I'm giving them life skills. I grew up
05:09watching Oprah. Okay. And I love Oprah. I love what she stands for. I love what she does.
05:16And I was like, I want to be Oprah. So when I proposed this to a friend of mine who helped me
05:21produce the show, she's like, you know, but the audience doesn't know you. So let's do the first
05:26season all about like Bollywood or we did Lollywood because we did Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, we did Atif
05:33Aslam. So I loved it. I enjoyed the experience. But if you know anything about me, I like to be
05:39the only diva in the room. And my God, dealing with them was like pulled me down a few notches.
05:46And I was like, I am not doing this again. Exactly, exactly. So I was like, No, I don't think
05:52this is going to work out for me. So I didn't do a second season, although I had people asking me
05:57that. And we kept thinking, we kept envisioning that once we do season one with celebrities,
06:03we'll do season two with more normal people or normal as in regular people. And my husband is
06:08like, okay, that was fun. Glad you did it. Now let's move on. Let's get on to the real work. So
06:13I was like, okay, fine. So I got sucked back into the business. Every decade or so I like to do
06:18something creative. So I did The Columns in 2000. Then I did the show in 2010. Now I'm overdue to do
06:26something creative. So it's coming up. It's coming up. No, close. Let's see. Let's see where we're
06:32coming up with something. So we'll figure something out. But every couple of but every decade or so I
06:37get a little creative bug. And then I want to try some I try my hand at something new. I used to
06:42think earlier that we had to conform. Now I do it more for myself. So I actually go all out just
06:51because I want to. Recently, my daughter, you know, and I love experimenting new things. I'll
06:57share a crazy that you wanted to hear. So my daughter, I love makeup. I absolutely love makeup.
07:03I love what they do, what it does for you. Like, I love it since I was 14. And I remember even in
07:09college when I would have a very, very stressful exam, I would like put on more makeup because it
07:14just made me feel a little bit more stronger, a little bit more, I don't know, confident. So I
07:20said fine. So recently, my daughter introduced introduced me to this site called Foundation.
07:26And I was like, okay, this is interesting. So I went there exploring on Foundation and Foundation
07:32is a site whereby when you plug in your current foundations, it gives you it tells you what number
07:39you are in the other brands. Okay, and I thought it was insane. But except my daughter said to me,
07:46Mom, most people use it to explore, you ended up buying 14 foundations. And I did. I ended up
07:55I am I'm not a serial shopper, but I'm one of those like crazy experiment, 14 foundations.
08:01So I actually bought 14 foundations. Now I'm going through them every day, I was wearing a new
08:06one in the house with nowhere to go. And I would be like, I'm just trying it out. What do you guys
08:11think, you know, and I'd walk around the whole house and see how the wearability is. Does it sit
08:15in my cracks? What does it do? It was just an experiment for me. So I just find it's so important
08:23in this day and age to stay relevant, no matter what you think of doing. I think what if you want
08:30to connect with your kids, or if you want to connect with customers who are the ages of your
08:35kids, or, you know, your peers, I feel it's so important to stay relevant, you know, and keep
08:41yourself entertained as well as learning. Because I think if you if you give up on this, and if you
08:48stop living life to its fullest, then what's the point? I have three kids, all three very different
08:55ages, I want to let them know that there's more to life than just following one path. I think it's
09:02really important to give them that broadened horizon perspective that you can do a lot of
09:09different things. And then of course, zero in on the one thing that's monetized, that helps you
09:15create your lifestyle and all of that. But it's important to have all these different areas too.
09:19I'm the mother who makes sure my PA organizes the maid to make the cookies I need to go into school.
09:28Yeah, I'm not, look, I learned a long time ago that if I'm going to get in the kitchen and bake my
09:33own cookies, I can't do the boardroom at the same time, I kind of prioritize what needs to be done
09:39by me, what can be done by someone else, and what definitely doesn't need to be done by me.
09:44So I kind of have that list and I use that. So my children will have me there if I need to show up
09:51for a graduation, for a play, for a Christmas play. If I need to take them to the movies and things like
09:56that, I'll show up. If they need to go buy shoes, we own shoe stores, please just go help yourself, come
10:02back and let me know what you bought. So you know, like I said, you can't be there for everything
10:08and do everything. You've got to make a list. I just think it's important to be authentic.
10:14And I think about relevance, it starts with self-confidence. If you're confident about who
10:19you are, what you bring to the table, I think it will shine through. So I think relevance is just
10:25a byproduct of the way you actually feel about yourself and the way you portray yourself. I just
10:31think parents invariably or by default are a kid's role models. And I think they don't, kids don't
10:41tell you that or we don't recognize it till much later in life. Like when I think about my journey,
10:46right? My father was always my mentor, but so was my mom. Watching my mom do what she did and
10:53supporting my dad, I came to a very late realization that she was actually way stronger than I gave her
10:59credit for. And I feel like we've got to be so aware of that because if we let that slide even
11:07the slightest, we can scar them emotionally. Like I keep saying my kids are going into therapy for
11:12sure because the kind of things I expose them to, my god, like they're like mom, like I said, the 10
11:19meter by 4 meter, you know, hoarding on Sheikh Zayed Road is enough to scar anyone. But I'll tell
11:25you a funny story about that. No, but since you like high tea with Seema Ved so much and you
11:30associate it with me, I'll tell you a funny story about that. My daughter went to university in
11:35Canada and she calls me and she goes, mom, you won't believe what I'm doing. It was a Saturday
11:39night. I was like, what are you doing? She goes, we're watching episodes of high tea with Seema Ved.
11:43I said, what is wrong with you? Like, why? Like, child, seriously? She goes, mom, no, so I'll tell you
11:50what happened. She met a girl who used to watch my shows and she said, mom, she started talking to me
11:56and she's like, are you related to Seema Ved? She's like, yeah, she's my mother. She's like, I can't
12:00believe that. So, they both sat down and reminisced and watched my shows. To me, that was so sweet.
12:06Like, I gave her a thread or a way of connecting to someone else from another part of the world
12:11whom she didn't know and they found this common ground. So, to me, if I can do that for my children,
12:18no matter in whatever sense, that's what else would I want? I don't know if it's true about
12:24women having it all or even me having it all. I think we all go through phases in life where we
12:29have a little bit more of one thing and then a little bit more of the other thing. So, I think
12:33over the years in my life, I've had phases where I was more of a mother and then now suddenly I
12:40realized in the last, I think, five to seven years, I'm more of a businesswoman and I truly believe
12:45that women need to understand that in business that there isn't going to be a phase where you
12:50have it all. I think there's always going to be a phase in our lives if you're planning to have that
12:55family, social and work balance, there's going to be phases where you do one more than the other.
Comments