Meet Pune Entrepreneur Runal Sakla-Nadgauda; The Force Behind Creation of Opportunities For Rural Women With Eco-Friendly Crafts
A Visionary Providing Rural Women of Pune a New Purpose: Meet Runal Sakla-Nadgauda
How Runal Sakla-Nadgauda’s eco-conscious vision is quietly transforming lives in the villages of Western India: one woman, one bag, one dream at a time.
There is a particular kind of courage in choosing to go back, back to the earth, back to handwork, back to the women the world has overlooked. Runal Sakla-Nadgauda, Founder and Designer of Rayna Ventures, has built her life and her legacy around exactly that kind of homecoming.
Born into a family where ambition was shaped by bricks and mortar, Runal grew up watching her father, a pioneer of the construction industry in Western India build more than buildings. He built a daughter who understood that real structures are made of purpose. Runal shares, “From the age of thirteen, I was on-site, absorbing the lessons only work can teach. That early foundation never left me”.
A Journey Shaped by Two Continents
A US national and a double postgraduate from America, Runal’s academic years deepened her eye for design and sharpened her instinct for craft. In 2013, she founded Rayna Jewelry Boutique in the USA, a space offering handcrafted fine jewelry in gold, diamonds, beads, gemstones, silver, and antique pieces. But something in her kept pulling eastward towards Pune, towards the women sitting at the edge of its villages, talented and invisible, capable and forgotten. In 2022, Runal answered that pull.
The Golden Fiber: Where Earth Meets Empowerment
She called the venture ‘The Golden Fiber,’ and the name itself was a quiet manifesto: Jute, golden and ancient, undervalued and enduring, just like the women who would weave it. Two manufacturing units were established: one in a rural suburb of Pune, and one in the heart of the city. Together, they have recruited and trained over twenty women, many of whom had never seen their skills reflected in a wage.
These women create an array of stylish, eco-conscious products from jute, canvas, and non-woven fabric like bags, carriers, wraps, and home goods that replace single-use plastic with something better: beauty with a conscience. The products are not charity. They are craft. And the women making them are not beneficiaries. They are artisans.
Runal asserts, “For many of these women, the shift has been profound. Societal pressures, the quiet weight of expectation that keeps women in homes rather than in workshops are real and persistent”. Runal’s model offers something more powerful than a salary: it offers identity. A reason to rise. A skill that belongs to them alone.
Aligned with the Earth, Aligned with the Spirit
Runal is deliberate in the language she uses around her work. The Golden Fiber’s products are a direct response to the plastic crisis, designed to align with Oman’s Vision 2040 and the Green Oman initiative, reflecting a global awareness that sits comfortably alongside a deeply spiritual worldview. For her, craft and consciousness are not separate pursuits. Making something by hand, with intention, from natural materials that is itself a spiritual act.
The venture now has presence in India, the USA, and Oman.
Incorporating In-Country Value (ICV) for eco-friendly products remains a guiding vision for Rayna Ventures, a vision that sees sustainability not as a trend, but as a responsibility woven into the very fabric of commerce.
Recognition Across Borders
The world has begun to notice. Runal has been recognised as one of the Top 100 FAB Leaders in Fashion, Apparel and Beauty (USA, 2021-22), and received the IBIEA International Business Innovation and Excellence Award in Oman in 2025. India honoured her with the Bharat Udyog Ratna Award for Best Emerging Eco-Friendly Brand in 2025, and the FSIA named her Best Businesswoman in Pune through the Super Woman Awards that same year.
A Message to Other Women Still Waiting
If there is one thing Runal Sakla-Nadgauda’s journey makes unmistakably clear, it is this, in her own words, “The path does not have to look like anyone else’s. I moved between continents, between industries, between construction, between jewelry and jute, between the personal and the political and in every move, I found not contradiction, but continuity.”
To the woman in a village outside Pune who has a pair of skilled hands and no idea what to do with them. To the young professional who feels pulled in too many directions to commit to any one. To anyone who has been told that their dreams are too big, too scattered, or too unconventional, Runal’s story is both mirror and map.
“Where there is a will, the way does not wait for permission”, Runal says. It grows from the inside, like a golden fiber reaching toward the light.
Her multitasking journey from construction to jewelry to humanitarian craft and also to encouraging children in the field of sports through her NGO (MAYA FOR ALL FOUNDATION) showcases a rare ability to bridge passions that the world tends to keep in separate rooms.
Her legacy, still being written, is one of creativity, compassion, and an unwavering dedication to making the world a better place. Not someday. Now. Stitch by stitch.
