Growing her brands in the Garden City

CYNTHIA Chua creates new businesses the way some people create art and music. "Doing all this is an expression of my creativity," says the founder and chief executive of Spa Esprit Group (SEG), a lifestyle company that encompasses 17 different beauty and food businesses.

"I have so many ideas in my head, and each project is different so I see things in different lights. I learn on the journey and I feel like I'm growing up."

Well-known as the woman who popularised Brazilian waxing in Singapore with her waxing studio Strip, she is used to hearing opinions that her harebrained ideas will not succeed. But succeed she does. "If you think I'm not going to make it, I'm going to show you that I can make it," she says.