Lording over a spacious mansion on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, with ceilings that shine with 24-karat gold and a bespoke pink Mercedes G-Wagon for her daughter, Anita Surani leads a life of splendor by anyone’s standards. Instead of settling into complacency, however, she took up the mantle of entrepreneurship and ambition. “I’m very rich. I could have spent all the money on shopping. I didn’t. And I just kept going,” she said in an interview with Gulf News.
In spite of the money she has in common with her husband, Surani created her own niche in the corporate world. She came to the U.S. from a middle-class family background and met her future husband, Moiz Khoja, when both were taking on several jobs simultaneously to get by—she was working at a jewellery store and he swept restaurant floors.
We were business partners, friends, and then a couple,” Surani explained of how their common grind allowed something more than a relationship to emerge. They founded a retail technology company that started with a single phone booth in a mall and expanded into a chain of more than 100 stores.
While her husband was building their technology empire, Surani went back to her roots as a designer in academics. She started playing around with real estate projects before finally joining a seasoned colleague to officially start her own interior design business in Dubai.
The start was not smooth. The interior design market in Dubai was crowded and stiff, and she had to begin small. She began with office spaces and apartments and over time built up to bigger projects such as villas and restaurants. Her firm—Xena Interiors—now has a team of more than 40 professionals comprising engineers, architects, graphic designers, and interior designers.
Back of her determination is a personal stake: her daughter. “I wanted to prove to my daughter that we can do everything. That we can get whatever we want. That’s why I dedicated the company to her — Zena,” she explained.
Though her lifestyle is at odds with it, Surani claims her firm operates on its own financial grounds. Her spouse made one thing explicit from the very beginning: She would be responsible for paying back any money invested in the business and covering employees’ wages herself. That responsibility became a strong impetus.
“I like money, and I earn it,” she said. “It’s pleasing when you’re earning the fortune you are making by yourself.”
Anita Surani’s story is one of transformation from a student struggling abroad to a housewife, and now a self-made businesswoman leading a successful company in one of the world’s most competitive markets.
