Nicole Rodrigues Larsen

A fashion model who offers financial advice? If it’s Nicole Rodrigues Larsen advising you, you may well end up with a fortune.

Originally from Mumbai, this successful serial entrepreneur lived in Bahrain and Copenhagen before moving to Dubai, where she set up one of the Middle East’s largest and best-known talent agencies: Diva Modelling and Events. She has since parlayed that success into a range of associate businesses, including ladies salons, laundries and the NM Investments advisory firm.

How did she do it? “I believe one can learn something from everyone, from the weakest to the strongest,” she says. Profound indeed.

— H.N.