NK Daga: The sweet scent of success

From running a kirana store in Odisha, NK Daga has since risen to found and helm a Rs 400 crore fragrance behemoth. Still driven and determined, despite a 32-year stint in the industry, Daga’s aiming to take his company to even greater heights.

NK Daga runs McNROE, the company that makes makes Wild Stone and Secret Temptation deodorants and perfumes

From humble beginnings, Daga has overcome struggles to turn his company into a Rs 400 crore fragrance empire

Currently, McNROE is the second largest Indian fragrance company after Gujarat-based Vini Cosmetics

Daga, though, has a plan to dethrone Vini Cosmetics. Will the old fragrance baron succeed?

There’s a light drizzle outside the South Delhi luxury hotel. The petrichor, combined with the mild scent wafting through the corridors, provides a rare pause in an otherwise polluted city. The fragrance originates from an artificial wall of pink Turkish roses that runs along the hotel’s ballroom entrance. There must be at least a hundred roses, one of which has found its way into the pocket of Narendra Kumar Daga’s dinner jacket.

AUTHOR

Harveen Ahluwalia

In her last assignment, Harveen was at Mint, the business daily published by HT Media. At Mint, where she spent about two years, she wrote stories on retail, food and the media business. Harveen is a B.Com (H) graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi. She has a diploma in journalism from the Times School of Journalism. Like many folks at The Ken, Harveen talks and tweets a lot. When she isn’t writing or reading, she likes to sketch and doodle. She can be reached at harveen at the-ken dot com.

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