Nahreen Asghar is an entrepreneur and fashion designer. She started her entrepreneurship journey in 1997. Currently, she is the Chief Executive officer of Rivaaj. Nahreen is the daughter of Mohammed Ali Asghar Lobby, former president of BCB (Bangladesh Cricket Board) and former Member of the parliament (MP) in Bangladesh. 

She started Rivaaj with her passion and with all the love, trust and support of all her valued patrons it became her profession and now her full-time career. Rivaaj is now a fully e-commerce-based platform. We mostly work with renowned designers, brands and labels from all around the world. The inner meaning of RIVAAJ is R-reasonable, I-impressive, V-vivacious, A-art, A-attractive & J-jewel.

Nahreen was always very passionate about colors and patterns and loved experimenting with them. Her canvas used to be the fabric that’s how she started with block printing back in the 90s. At that time only a few designers like Rina Lattif, Shama Karim (Libaas) and she has been working on block printing.

To make Rivaaj different from others, after that she introduced more creative ways of spray painting and brush painting on fabrics using hands and combs. This new design became very popular amongst all her clients. Another design from Rivaaj that was very famous were the karchupi and handwork on deshi jamdani and muslin fabrics. Since she was a full-time teacher, Rivaaj was something she did in a small room in her garage but the love and attention she got from all her customers allowed her to take it to the next level then she opened a store on the second floor of the Pink City, Gulshan2 in 2006. 

The response I received there was heartwarming and I decided to open a bigger store of 2850 sqft in my own office space in Banani 11, Rupsha Center in 2011. Since it was a huge space I added more to the collection with my own designs. These were all new additional collections from all over India and Pakistan. We had separate sections for bridal collections, traditional collections, contemporary designs, jewelry and accessory counters and a variety of fragrances and perfumes too. She added. 

Rivaaj gained fame, goodwill and immense trust from their valuable customers for serving the best quality of products and maintaining the best customer services. Rivaaj never compromises with quality and highly maintains authenticity. 

After receiving such an amazing response and so much appreciation from everyone her younger daughter, who is now 16 years old, showed a lot of interest in this field of work since she belongs to the new generation and understands the upcoming trends much better, Nahreen’s younger daughter helps her with a lot with business ideas. She even opened her own page called “Rivaaj Lifestyle” where she takes orders from UK-based brands and is doing a great job at it.

Time has changed, we should broaden our minds and let women empowerment reach all sectors of society. I’m a single mother of two daughters and I want both my daughters to get established in their lives. I want them to complete their education, have their own earnings and then get settled in their lives. That has always been my advice them and I motivated them to do so. A girl should always be independent first and never have to depend on anyone – be parents or partners. They should always have their own identity. Nahreen added more. 

She had a fear of failure since the online platform was totally a new concept and a very different experience for her but her dedication to breaking fear and finally boosted her confidence. Rivaaj is not only a platform for shopping for people, it is also Nahreen’s identity. People know her through Rivaaj, it’s her pride! 

As an entrepreneur, I have struggled to be in the position where I’m today! It was only my hard work and my dedication towards my passion which kept me going. I always say that keep believing in yourself and get going for your dreams.

Besides her teaching and fashion designing interests, she also started a Nonprofit organization named Saleha Hafez Foundation in 2019, which is named after her grandparents. The organization is mostly to help the people of Khulna. They started by giving food to people in need. Soon enough COVID hit, and cases in Khulna were at an all-time high. At that time they commenced providing sanitizers, masks, oxygen cylinders, medicines, etc to covid patients as well as providing with daily necessities. It started on a very small scale but has grown into a big organization now and they are able to provide for people on a large scale.

Women’s empowerment may be defined in several ways, including accepting women’s viewpoints, making an effort to seek them and raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training.