Here's the inspiring story of a high-spirited entrepreneur Konkana Bakshi, who is the founder of Savoir Faire Academia, exclusively on Famehall.
Formal education and career -
Konkana Bakshi is the founder and director of Savoir Faire Academie, a first-of-its-kind finishing school in India, which specializes in social and business etiquette, body language and image consultancy.
She comes from a very conservative business family. Her father is in the Pharmaceuticals industry and her late mother was in the diamond industry. When she was young, she participated in different beauty pageants including Femina Miss India, and Miss Elegance World among many others. She is grateful to her parents for giving her the freedom and liberty to travel at a very young age. Her participation in different beauty pageants internationally along with the various trips they took as a family when she was young gave her a lot of exposure and awareness of global culture.
She believes that nothing is a better finishing school than traveling to different countries at a young age as it shapes minds and gives a lot of understanding of International culture.
Konkana Bakshi studied in Switzerland on social etiquette, she is a licensed Image Consultant from London Image Institute. She is trained and accredited to offer a business etiquette curriculum from Emily Post Institute in the USA.
Brief on Savoir Faire Academie -
Savoir Faire Academie caters to a wide range of clientele like Business family heirs, industrialists, children of politicians, and Bollywood stars among many others.
When you become a Savoir Faire Academie’s private client, you get a complete visual transformation. They offer a wide range of programs for understanding social etiquette, body language, image consultancy and business etiquette.
As a private client, your identity is not disclosed in any media or posted over social media. The team at Savoir Faire Academie signs a very strict non-disclosure agreement to keep your identity completely secure.
They also provide a wide range of workshops that provide an array of services that guarantee a transformation.
Plans and how they stand out -
Konkana Bakshi plans on expanding to the US, Dubai and Singapore shortly.
As they had a lot of international clients that grew in proportions through virtual sessions during covid, now, most of her clients are spread across the globe. The expansion is to cater to the needs of her international clients.
Savoir Faire Academie guarantees a transformation. They perform a lifestyle assessment and take a before picture to compare with the visual transformation after they are done. They create bespoke modules according to the personality of their client. They have a consultant on board who does lifestyle assessment and personality analysis. They curate the entire session based on the results from the analysis. They create a module based on the needs of their client, after analyzing the depth their client has in understanding social or business etiquette in general.
A lot of their clients come to Savoir Faire Academie before attending economic forums for a few sessions to help with the process of networking with international clients.
Overcoming challenges and failures -
When asked how Konkana Bakshi overcame failures during the initial stages, her response was honest.
“With a lot of sweat, blood and tears.”
When she first started, she was quite young and took every disappointment fiercely through the heart. Now, with the experience she has from facing setbacks, she believes that the level of pain through disappointments diminished. She learnt how to handle everything better and believes that all the setbacks and initial failures had groomed her to be a better entrepreneur.
She never looked for massive success. She always aspired to gain prestige over fame.
“Fame is superficial, you might be famous now and not be famous tomorrow, but prestige lasts a lifetime.", she stated.
Source of Inspiration -
Konkana Bakshi’s greatest source of inspiration had been the people she met through her academy.
She met various industrialists, and very high-end business people, which gave her a tremendous amount of inspiration. She noticed how they conduct themselves in the world of business and the way they lead their lives. She came from the beauty pageant world and she noticed that the way people behave in the glamour industry is completely different from the way people are in the world of business.
In the business world, people are a lot more sophisticated, more subdued, a lot more conservative and polished. She believes that getting that understanding was revolutionary. She was impressed with it all as she realized she fit into this world more.
Although they were learning etiquette from her, she learned a lot from them. She feels very reassured to be among the Business Leaders as she learned so much empathy, leadership, humility and emotional intelligence.
Advice to young entrepreneurs -
If she could go back in time, the one piece of advice she would like to give herself is to take up more opportunities. She would tell herself to jump into the sea and take more risks.
The next thing would be to embrace failure and not be disappointed by it. Because failure grooms you, without it, you will never enjoy success.
In the rags-to-riches story, there is a sudden growth spurt and overnight success. She doesn’t believe that it's good because overnight success is mostly a matter of luck. Every success should come after struggle while carving the path through.
This is the same advice she would give young entrepreneurs as well.
Achievements -
Konkana Bakshi believes that everything she achieved is through Savoir Faire Academie. It gave her an identity over the years. “Instead of being the founder of Savoir Faire Academie, I think the academy has found me,” she concludes.