Kanika Tekriwal
read from 2 public sources

Kanika Tekriwal

Runs India's largest private jet fleet by day, disappears up a mountain road by herself when the creativity needs rebooting — reads airport scanners for fun and takes your side against anyone who confuses a title with a person.

Operator energyDesigner's eye, engineer's brainWarm but bluntDelightfully glam-casualRebuilding her own rules

Kanika has been building since she was 17 — co-founder and CEO of JetSetGo Aviation Services, a TEDx speaker, a Shark Tank India investor, and someone publicly recognised by Forbes, the BBC and UN Women. She is honest about the cost of that: she has written about being the 'always on' person who thought 'sleep is for the weak', and about unlearning it. She is equally candid about conflict in her own family, which suggests a person who says the true thing rather than the smooth one. Beneath the operator there is a designer's eye, a love of dressing up and city lights, and a recent, tender chapter of slow mornings and gratitude. She does not want a balanced life in the tidy sense — she wants a chosen one.

in LinkedInIG Instagram
What Kanika needs
A partner who can live without ritualised, predictable couple-time

She has publicly rejected the idea that work and life are two buckets to balance and says she will not take a day off just because the calendar says Sunday. A relationship built on fixed weekly rhythms will feel like pressure to her, not safety.

  • in“There is no balance between anything.”
  • in“I'm not taking that compulsive Sunday off just because it's Sunday.”
Someone who reads her solo trips as health, not distance

She has identified solo travel and quiet as her actual recharge mechanism, and credits it with bringing her creativity back. A partner who experiences that as rejection will create a problem where there isn't one.

  • in“One Friday, I closed my laptop and went on a solo trip. No calls. No deadlines. No guilt.”
  • in“somewhere between mountain roads and quiet mornings, my creativity came back”
Comfort with a public-facing life and a company that is a co-competitor for attention

JetSetGo has been her identity since 2013, and she sits on global platforms; press, awards, stages and media features are part of the relationship context, not a separate compartment she steps out of.

  • in“Co-founder & CEO - JetSetGo Aviation Services Pvt. Ltd.”
  • IG“Young Global Leader @ WEF”
Directness, and willingness to have the hard conversation rather than smooth it over

She airs real conflict with her own mother in public and names outside pressure — including family pressure — as something to stop succumbing to. She will not perform agreeableness, and she won't respect a partner who does.

  • in“I had a fight with my mom recently.”
  • in“Stop succumbing to pressure - social, societal, family.”
Warmth and recognition that gets given out loud, and comes back

She measures people by behaviour, not titles, and she credits specific individuals by name without being asked. A partner who notices her and says so — specifically — will land very differently than one who assumes she knows.

  • in“Your title doesn't make you a leader. How you treat people does.”
  • in“Thankyou Vasu Dev for all that you do! More and more power to you.”
Room for tenderness and slower rhythms alongside the ambition

Her own words about slow mornings, resting being productive, and keeping time for herself describe a person who needs gentleness built into the week, not saved for holidays.

  • IG“You gave me slow mornings, tiny baby cuddles”
  • IG“resting is productive too, and that making time for myself isn't selfish—it's necessary”
Hobbies
  • Solo travel and wandering
    She takes off alone with no calls and no deadlines and describes herself as a wanderer; city streets, mountain roads and quiet mornings are her reset.
    • IG“Small town girl. Massive Dreams. Wanderer”
    • in“One Friday, I closed my laptop and went on a solo trip. No calls. No deadlines. No guilt.”
  • Following women's cricket with real feeling
    She watched India's women win their first World Cup and wrote about the invisible hours behind it — 5 a.m. practices and contracts worth less than a men's net session.
    • in“Every 5 a.m. practice with no one watching.”
    • in“The Indian women's team just won their first-ever World Cup.”
  • Reading airport technology for pleasure
    She goes deep on walk-through millimeter-wave security at Frankfurt and biometric rollout at Changi, Dubai and Abu Dhabi — the kind of person who will narrate the process while you're standing in the queue.
    • in“Frankfurt Airport just changed the game with walk-through security.”
    • in“What used to take a few minutes now takes just 10 secon”
  • Dressing up and city nights with her people
    She frames a whole month as 'family, friends, full plates, city lights' and jokes about the gap between dressing up and passing the McNuggets; Cannes is remembered for 'outfits louder' and sequins through hotel lobbies.
    • IG“somewhere between “let’s dress up” and “pass the McNuggets.””
    • IG“the outfits louder, and the confidence dangerously high”
  • Art, design and visual storytelling
    She studied Visual Communication and Design, and lists immersive art among the things that made a month beautiful — the aesthetic layer shows up in how carefully her posts are framed.
    • in“Visual Communication and Design”
    • IG“immersive art”
  • Occasion outings and long table meals
    Poolside/resort settings, celebrations of friends' milestones, and 'unforgettable meals' recur — she likes planned, shared occasions rather than only spontaneous ones.
    • IG“You filled my heart with unforgettable meals”
    • IG“You reminded me to celebrate the people who make life brighter—cherishing special friends and their milestones”
Interests
  • The future of air mobility
    She is personally betting her established business on EvTOL air taxis — long-horizon, unproven technology she talks about as unlocking the sky for everyday transport.
    • in“aiming to unlock the third dimension—our skies—for everyday transport through EvTOLs”
    • in“Revolutionising Air Mobility”
  • Marketing and brand storytelling
    She paused her aviation commentary to break down a Fevicol Instagram ad and quote its punchline — she enjoys a good campaign and thinks in story beats.
    • in“Fevicol broke the internet with its $102 million Louvre heist story.”
    • in““Ab Dhoom machane ki baari hamari.”
  • Women's leadership and equity
    She was featured in a UN Women and Ford Foundation publication celebrating women leaders and wrote about wanting a world where women don't have to fight extra hard to be heard — and frames it as leading 'with love'.
    • in“a space that celebrates women who lead with love”
    • in“a world where women don't have to fight extra hard to be heard”
  • Leadership philosophy and how organisations behave
    She thinks in public about culture — Satya Nadella, listening more, admitting what you don't know, and the difference between leading with power and leading with presence.
    • in“One led with power. The other led with presence.”
    • in“making others feel comfortable enough to share their ideas”
  • Food and gathering
    'Full plates', 'pass the McNuggets', 'unforgettable meals' — food is how she marks a good month and good company.
    • IG“family, friends, full plates, city lights & questionable amounts of fun”
    • IG“August, you were deliciously chaotic.”
  • Global cities and travel culture
    Cannes, Bhopal, Mumbai, Delhi, resort decks, crosswalks — she keeps a mental map of places and the mood of each one.
    • IG“Last year in Cannes.”
    • IG“Putting India on the aviation map”
Values
  • Judge behaviour, not credentials
    She explicitly measures leadership by how people are treated rather than titles or office size, and says she has seen CEOs with big offices lose their best people.
    • in“Your title doesn't make you a leader. How you treat people does.”
    • in“I've seen CEOs with big offices lose their best people”
  • Ambition and softness are not opposites
    She celebrates women who lead with love and frames drive and care as the same project — worth noting alongside a decade-plus of running her own company.
    • in“for creating a space that celebrates women who lead with love”
    • in“75 amazing women who didn't just lead. They changed what leadership means in India.”
  • Resilience and rebuilding
    Her public story is framed around surviving serious illness and then building a company from almost nothing as a young woman in a male-dominated industry — she honours perseverance and long rebuilds.
    • IG“From surviving cancer to soaring through India's private aviation industry”
    • IG“resilience is not simply about overcoming obstacles, but having the courage to build something extraordinary beyond them”
  • Self-direction over outside expectation
    She cancelled a holiday and moved it to when she actually wanted it, and names social, societal and family pressure as the thing to stop bowing to.
    • in“I could have gone in September when I actually wanted the holiday.”
    • in“The only way to make things work: Stop succumbing to pressure - social, societal, family.”
  • Gratitude, spoken out loud
    Bare public thank-yous to a named colleague and to God — she marks what she's grateful for rather than assuming it's understood.
    • in“Thankyou Vasu Dev for all that you do!”
    • IG“Thankyou god 🧿”
Personality
Adventurousness86
Solo trips with no itinerary, a self-description as 'Wanderer', and a business bet on EvTOL air taxis. She leaves the known route on purpose, in both travel and work.
Ambition95
Co-founder and CEO since 2013, working alongside college from 17, TEDx, Shark Tank India, Forbes 30 Under 30, BBC 100 Women. Her work is her identity, not a job she closes at 7pm.
Social energy70
She loves a loud night — dress-up, city lights, group chat IRL, Cannes, awards stages — but deliberately disappears alone to recharge. Selective, not endlessly available.
Playfulness78
She stops mid-aviation-commentary to quote a Fevicol punchline, jokes about McNuggets inside a glamorous month, and carries sequins through hotel lobbies 'like it was completely normal behavior'.
Intellectual curiosity88
Reads and writes long-form about millimeter-wave scanners and biometric checkpoints for pleasure, breaks down leadership culture, and analyses an ad campaign's mechanics.
Groundedness72
She publicly named her own workaholism and is unlearning it — 'rest isn't wasting time' — and writes plainly about gratitude, quiet mornings and cherishing ordinary days. Still a work in progress, by her own account.
How they live
Base
Delhi, India (LinkedIn lists Delhi, India; Greater Delhi Area for JetSetGo)
Pace
Extremely fast and set by her, not by convention. Company, public appearances, travel and family obligations overlap; she has held more than one demanding commitment at a time for most of her career.
Social
Wide and warm — awards and global platforms on one side, long meals with family and friends and 'one long group chat… but IRL' on the other. Public-facing, with a clear inner circle.
Travel
Constant and mixed-purpose: airport and aviation travel, Cannes, city breaks, solo mountain trips. She treats moving through the world as fuel rather than an interruption.
Health
Frames rest as maintenance — 'Even machines need breaks' — and describes rest as productive, with slow mornings and time for herself treated as necessary rather than selfish. No medical detail beyond what she has said publicly.
Work / life
Deliberately unseparated. She says there is no balance and optimises for what she wants right now rather than for a clean 7pm logout.
Talks like
Short, punchy lines stacked like a keynote — one idea per line, a turn in the middle, a warm landing. Direct and unafraid of stating a disagreement in public. Bilingual flourishes and a dry joke when the moment allows. She tells you what she thinks the first time rather than hinting.
Shows care by
She says it out loud and names you specifically — a bare public thank-you to a colleague, celebrating friends' milestones, gratitude posted with 🧿. She gives credit loudly and in detail, and she protects the people who work with her by making room for their ideas. She shows up for the quiet, unglamorous work others do and remembers who did it.
Green flags
  • Says the hard thing in the relationship instead of storing it — publicly documented the disagreement with her mother rather than performing the agreeable daughter
  • Credits individuals by name, unprompted
  • Publicly admits to flaws and changes her mind — she named her own workaholism and is unlearning it
  • Celebrates other women's wins rather than treating them as competition
  • Long track record of following through: over a decade running the same company
  • Distinct mix of operational rigour and aesthetic care — an economics and design background under the finance MBA
Friction
  • Her calendar is set by her company — weekends, evenings and holiday plans can move at short notice, and she has said so plainly.
  • She takes off alone and treats it as health. A partner who reads solo trips as withdrawal will feel distant from her even when nothing is wrong.
  • Her work is her identity, so a partner is sharing the top of her attention with a fleet, a board and a stage.
  • She is openly comfortable with public visibility, including mixing personal life with business content; someone private may find that exposure tiring.
  • She will push back on family and social expectations rather than keep the peace, which can put a partner in the middle of those tensions.
  • Ten-plus years of parallel commitments means divided attention is her default mode, not a phase she'll grow out of.
Dealbreakers
  • Needing a fixed, ritualised weekly schedule of togetherness
  • Measuring people by titles, offices or credentials
  • Treating her solo travel or rest as a problem to be fixed
  • Leading with power rather than presence — being the smartest person in the room at other people's expense
  • Requiring her to log out, opt out of the public side of her life, or shrink the company
  • Performing agreeableness and avoiding hard conversations
Who fits them

Someone secure enough to be genuinely unbothered by an irregular calendar, a public life and a partner who sometimes needs to disappear up a mountain road alone. Ideally they have their own consuming thing — a craft, a company, a discipline — so that ambition is a shared language rather than a competition. Warm, direct, quick to say a specific thank-you, and interested in how things actually work; they should be able to talk about a leadership failure at dinner and quote a daft ad punchline at breakfast.

Dates they'd love
  • A long, unhurried dinner at a place worth dressing up for, followed by a walk through the city lights — she marks good months by 'full plates' and 'let's dress up'.
  • A spontaneous mid-week day off: drive out of the city with no fixed agenda, quiet roads and a long morning, the thing she credits with bringing her creativity back.
  • An immersive art exhibition or design show followed by a drink where you both argue about the campaign that broke the internet this week.
  • An airport watch — a lounge or observation deck, overanalysing the new security scanners and biometric gates, with her narrating the process and you keeping score.
Ask them about
  • Ask her about the day she cancelled her summer holiday and rebooked it for September because she actually wanted it — what made her finally stop negotiating with her own calendar.
  • Ask what changed when she stopped being the 'always on' person, and what she still misses about that version of herself.
  • Ask her to explain the Frankfurt walk-through scanner and where Indian airports sit on biometrics — this is genuinely her idea of fun.
  • Ask about the Fevicol Louvre ad and whether she thinks the punchline actually sold the glue.
  • Ask about the 5 a.m. practices nobody watched in women's cricket — she noticed that detail for a reason.
How the agent talks on their behalf
Speak like a founder's chief of staff: fast, warm, concrete, allergic to fluff. Lead with specifics, not adjectives. Don't oversell her — say the true thing, including that her calendar is genuinely chaotic and her Sundays aren't sacred. Use short declarative lines, one idea at a time, and a dry joke when the moment allows. Never pitch her as needing to be rescued or balanced, and never apologise for her ambition. Useful phrases: 'heads up, her week is set by a company', 'she'll say the direct thing, please do the same', 'she gives credit out loud — you'll know when she likes something'. Move quickly, confirm plans in plain language, and if you're going to reschedule, tell her early rather than managing her.
✓ both links look like the same personconfidence 82/100