Mumbai: Lakmé Academy powered by Aptech has signed Bollywood actress Ananya Panday as the brand ambassador. The association comes after a long-standing relationship of the actress with the brand. Appealing to a young, Gen Z audience with her quirky, cute and charming demeanour, Ananya is a recognised youth icon in India.

The Rs 25,000 crore professional beauty and wellness industry in India, which includes salons, spas, parlours, men grooming outlets & skin clinics, amongst others, has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent over the last decade. The industry is extremely fragmented, but it is believed to have over one million outlets employing almost 15 million people, of which nearly 65 per cent are women. For a young country like India, with nearly 700 million individuals below 25 years of age, the beauty and wellness industry has the potential to generate livelihoods in small towns without promoting mass-scale migration to large metros.

Focusing on professional training and providing opportunities in the space, Lakmé Academy powered by Aptech, with over 130 centres in 100 cities+ across India, has added tremendous value in not only upskilling thousands of students with their industry-relevant curriculum but also giving them hands-on experience of becoming professional artists beautifying their future and that of the industry as well.