Women Of Influence 2025: Secret Skin's Anisha Oberoi

Anisha Oberoi founded Secret Skin in 2020 with a mission to make affordable, toxin-free skin care accessible to Middle Eastern customers, and today, she proudly declares her UAE-born enterprise to be “the GCC’s largest distribution company in the sustainable beauty and wellness space.” Indeed, Secret Skin currently operates across four countries and in 17 distribution doors with key prestige retailers in the region, and with the market size for clean beauty in the GCC projected at US$4 billion, it seems safe to say that the company’s growth trajectory is far from over.

However, when looking back on her journey building the enterprise, Oberoi says that it has been anything but a joyride.

“Becoming an entrepreneur is the scariest yet most rewarding ambition that I have ever pursued,” Oberoi admits. “It brought to light hidden strengths and gaps that were important for me as a human being to navigate. An experience like this changes you at the core—the recalibration is at a deeply emotional, spiritual, and intellectual level; it is not just an upskilling of your professional talents or resume. It’s lonely and hard; it’s definitely not for the faint-hearted.”

To Oberoi’s credit, she has stayed the course, and in doing so, become a reference point for others who hope to follow in her footsteps—a responsibility that she doesn’t take lightly.

“Women in corporate leadership positions act as beacons of inspiration,” Oberoi says. “They are seen as examples of what is possible through hard work, intelligence, and grit, and how female professionals can use their strengths to achieve successes in the workplace, despite unconscious biases that have existed in the past. This mold is breaking; there has never been a better time for women to rise in positions of power—but this also comes with greater responsibility towards guiding younger generations of women to be forthright in their approach, and to make the right business decisions without shrinking to fit the male-dominated room.”

Lessons Learned: Q&A with Anisha Oberoi

Looking back on your journey, if there is one piece of advice you’d give yourself before you embarked on your career, what would that be? Additionally, if you could go back in time and tell yourself something that you should avoid or simply not do, what would that be?  

I would tell myself to not give in to hustle culture. We are addicted to the superficial when younger, and prone to succumb to peer pressure in the race to what we see as “success.” However, there is both courage and divinity in holding space for yourself during these years of evolution when you are meant to understand your potential through personal setbacks, professional wins and constant self-introspection. You must be willing to let go of what doesn’t serve you (traits, situations, people), be mindful about what kind of person you want to be and what values you want to stand for. Everything that you do should align to this mental model, in sync with your “light.” In setting high standards for yourself as you level up over the years, you start vibrating at a much higher frequency—this attracts opportunities and relationships that are truly meant for your spiritual growth path. 

Pictured in the lead image is Anisha Oberoi, founder and CEO of Secret Skin. Courtesy of Secret Skin.

Anisha Oberoi was one of Inc. Arabia's Women of Influence 2025, a showcase of 30 women rewriting the rules of business in the MENA region. For the full list, please click here.