Brief Profile

ILA KUMAR VALIA

Ila has over 25 years of experience in the field of talent scouting, grooming and
marketing them. Shes has also  been involved in sponsorship,marketing  and organizing
of big ticket events like Femina Ms India,Filmfare Awards, Brand Equity Quiz,Times food
and Nightlife awards and many others.

ILA started her career with the handling of the homecoming of Sushmita Sen, the first
ever Ms. Universe title holder from India and thereafter for over 18 years was a part of
the organising team for the prestigious Femina Miss India contest. Ever since then she
has been involved in scouting for the right talent. They were then trained in various
aspects such as public speaking, styling, physical fitness, hair styling and makeup etc,
before they went on for participating in various International pageants such as Miss
Universe, Miss World, Miss Asia Pacific and Miss Earth. During her tenure there were
many International winners with the likes of Aishwarya Rai, Manpreet Brar,Diana
Hayden, Yukta Mookhey, Priyanka Chopra, Lara Dutta, Diya Mirza, and Parvathy
Omanakuttan. 

She has also discovered Tapsee Pannu,Neha Dhupia besides many others such as Esha
Gupta,  Gul Panag just to name a few. 

She has also worked with some of the most respected people and luminaries in their
own field and from different genres of fashion, lifestyle, cinema, music, entertainment &
from the corporate and business sector too.
These includes the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Hrithik
Roshan, Anil Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Kajol, Priyanka Chopra, Sridevi, Hema Malini, Rani
Mukherjee, Urmila Matondkar, Raveena Tandon etc.

She has been involved with some of the biggest Indian Design Labels such as Ritu
Kumar, Manish Malhotra, J J Valaya , Falguni and Shane Peacock & Satya Paul - infact the
only Indian designer to have showcased their collection at the landmark Madame
Tussaud’s in London. She has conducted various shows in New York, Johannesburg,
Singapore, Dubai, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo, Mauritius, etc. and organised
Fashion weeks/shows in various cities across the world. She also has been a consultant
with FDCI for 2 seasons of the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. 

ILA had been the National Business Head for the talent management division of the
Times of India group called the SHOOT Talent Management. She scouted for some of
India’s leading talent by identifying both girls and boys as raw talent and polished these
rough diamonds and showcased and marketed them as sparkling gems and turning
them into stars. A shining example – ex Miss Sri Lanka Jacqueline Fernandez. 

Ila was involved with the launch of Times Food awards along with late Sabina Sehgal
Saikia. 
 She is the former founding Director of Frankfinn Institute of Modeling and Acting and
had been associated with it for over four years. Her latest protege  was Mansi Kadyan
who is now a leading model internationally. 
Ila was also instrumental in running her own institute called Ila Institute of Grooming
and Modeling for two years till April 2019.