At 28, Navya Naveli Nanda’s corporate orientation began where most children’s playtime ends: around tractors and heavy farm machinery. Today, the scion of the Nanda family behind Escorts Kubota works alongside her father, Chairman and Managing Director Nikhil Nanda, at the roughly ₹32,500-crore listed tractor and engineering company.
But Nanda has another side. She is co-authoring The Map, a forthcoming HarperCollins India book challenging stereotypes about Gen Z, and sees a generation that wants purpose alongside profit, increasingly views men and women as equals, and faces uncertainty over how AI will reshape lives and careers.
“Young people don’t just want profit; they want purpose,” Nanda said at the launch of Aparajita, the Hindi edition of former State Bank of India Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya’s memoir, Indomitable. Bhattacharya, too, dismissed the stereotype that Gen Z is entitled or unwilling to work as “totally wrong.”
On gender, Nanda said seeing the person across the table as an equal gives young people the confidence to voice an opinion, though stereotypes and structural barriers remain. Equality should not mean women simply playing catch-up with men. “I think it’s about creating our own blueprint” for how women want to live and contribute, she said, adding that men also have a role as partners, fathers and brothers.
Nanda does not argue that her generation has had it harder. Technology has removed some difficulties earlier generations encountered, she said, but Gen Z faces uncertainties of its own, particularly over AI.
In response, she sees resilience and a stronger sense of purpose. She said there is a “very, very strong commitment” among people her age to contributing to society, to women, and to themselves.
But Nanda has another side. As the daughter of Nikhil Nanda and Shweta Bachchan Nanda, and granddaughter of Bollywood icons Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan, she straddles two prominent family legacies—making inheritance and the question of creating an identity beyond it deeply personal.
Outside the family business, Nanda co-founded Aara Health, a women-focused health and wellness platform, and founded Project Naveli, a non-profit focused on gender equality and opportunities for women.
“I think what has been passed around me is far more than what I might even achieve in my life,” she said.
Nanda does not want that inheritance to define her. She said she doesn’t want her identity to rest on her last name or on being somebody’s daughter, sister, or friend, and she hopes to create one through her own work and personal life.
Published on September 11, 2026
