Third and final on our Women Who Walk Ahead series is Nina Ismail, the brains behind the women-only salon Capello by Nina, SB Beauty, F&B joint Fluff Bakery and the preschool dubbed Peterana Kindergarten.

Sifting through the chain of companies&nbsp;helmed by Nina Ismail Sabri (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/ninaismailsabri/?hl=en">@ninaismailsabri</a>), it becomes&nbsp;apparent that her business reach knows&nbsp;no bounds. From the women-only salon&nbsp;Capello by Nina to beauty mastermind&nbsp;SB Beauty, F&amp;B joint Fluff Bakery&nbsp;and the preschool dubbed Peterana&nbsp;Kindergarten, Nina&rsquo;s petite frame belies&nbsp;the scale of her drive and ambition.

The&nbsp;University of Queensland alumna puts&nbsp;her master&rsquo;s degree in business and&nbsp;marketing to good use as she seeks to&nbsp;exploit the gaps of opportunities left&nbsp;behind by the bigger players.

Managing one company is&nbsp;demanding enough but you&rsquo;re&nbsp;juggling four. How do you manage?

By having a wonderful team on my side.&nbsp;I&rsquo;m blessed in that sense because the&nbsp;people who were there with me when&nbsp;Peterana first started in 2012 are still with&nbsp;me today. I treat my staff like my own&nbsp;family so that they also feel comfortable&nbsp;talking to me. That said, I will put my foot&nbsp;down when the time comes. I can be strict&nbsp;at times, but I make sure that they know&nbsp;that they can always talk to me.

But coming from a family of certain&nbsp;influence, some might say that you&nbsp;have it easier. How do you respond&nbsp;to this?

I have to say I was lucky because my&nbsp;father did give me a head start with the&nbsp;start-up costs, but it was a one-off thing&nbsp;and it wasn&rsquo;t much. To me, starting a&nbsp;business is easy, everyone can do it,&nbsp;but it was up to me to sustain and to&nbsp;grow the business. As a matter of fact, I&nbsp;initiated my other three brands from the&nbsp;revenue I made from Peterana.

Being a spouse and a parent, on top&nbsp;of it all, how do you find that elusive&nbsp;work-life balance?

Family is very important to me because&nbsp;I come from a close-knit family, so&nbsp;when I married Jovian (Mandagie), I&nbsp;was happy that he also takes family&nbsp;life seriously. So we made a pact that&nbsp;no matter how busy we are, we will not&nbsp;work on Sundays to spend time with&nbsp;each other. We also make it a routine&nbsp;to have dinner together at least three&nbsp;times a week.

Your daughter Jeanelle is turning&nbsp;one soon. Will she be heading to&nbsp;Peterana too?

Oh, yes! For 16-month-olds, we have&nbsp;this thing called playschool that they&nbsp;can attend three times a week, and&nbsp;Jeanelle will be the youngest child&nbsp;enrolled at Peterana, ever. She really&nbsp;loves to learn. I own a lot of learning&nbsp;tools at home like books and sensory&nbsp;objects whereby she can touch&nbsp;different items with different textures,&nbsp;and she seems to enjoy them.

What is one piece of advice&nbsp;you&rsquo;d give to aspiring female&nbsp;entrepreneurs?

When I first got married, people kept&nbsp;asking me &ldquo;why is it that you don&rsquo;t have&nbsp;a kid yet?&rdquo; It&rsquo;s strange but that&rsquo;s our&nbsp;society. But at the time, Peterana and&nbsp;Capello were really taking off, and so&nbsp;was Jovian&rsquo;s business. So we both&nbsp;decided to wait for a couple of years&nbsp;to have a baby. To me, if you want to&nbsp;do something, just do it; give it your all&nbsp;and surround yourself with people who&nbsp;support you.

Photography: Chintoo&nbsp; 
Styling: Jeffrey Yan 
Makeup: Khir Khalid 
Hair: Juno Ko 
Hijab Stylist: Nazerul Anaz 
Styling Assistant: Joyce Fan

Women Who Walk Ahead: Nina Ismail Sabri

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