Birla scion Aryaman plans super-exclusive club in Mumbai

Aryaman Birla is back in the game, but it’s not cricket this time round.
After taking an indefinite break from the sport in 2019, the Birla scion is set to launch a members-only private club called Jolie’s at Birla Centurion in Worli.

The debut entrepreneurial venture of the 23-year-old son of Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla will be spread over 20,000 square feet and will chug offfrom September.

“We put together this character - – Jolie’s - that would be the perfect representation of the space. Someone who is ambitious, has a strong sense of individuality… who isn’t afraid to be themselves and stand up for themselves,” Birla says. “I think it’s important and what we all strive to be in this age: a strong personality and high achiever.”

“Entrepreneurs, artists, sportspeople, businesspeople – I think there is so much we can learn from each other’s diverse backgrounds and experiences, and we want to gather people from all walks of life under one roof. We’re agnostic to age and field,” Birla says.

The club’s location, look, curated experiences and community will set it apart from others, he adds. “We’re smack in the middle of Worli, which means it’s more accessible to both sides of the city.”

Birla says he has benchmarked Jolie’s against some of the best in the world, like Annabel’s and sketch in London and The Core Club in New York.

“We found that most clubs we currently have in the country are very corporate-centred. We wanted to go broader than that. We wanted to make it more about lifestyle,” he says.

The ‘by invitation’ space includes a business centre, meeting rooms, al fresco areas, and a cigar lounge. It is also pet-friendly. Birla says the idea is to create a space in India that has not been seen before.

“Doing something one of a kind – that’s always been the goal. The fact that it is so consumer facing makes it quite interesting and also nuanced, especially in a world where everyone is grappling with a new reality.”

A few things will set Jolie’s apart from other member clubs like Soho House and The Chambers. “The physical space itself is very different. The community is different, too. While Soho may be driven by the artist community and a place like Chambers caters to a corporate one, we want to be much more eclectic, as we can learn from each other irrespective of age or field,” says Birla.

Members will be a diverse set of dynamic individuals from all walks of life — entrepreneurs, achievers, artists, thinkers, industrialists and more.

For the moment, Birla prefers not to disclose either the membership fee or the club’s expansion plans.

Bigger ABG Role
Birla says conceptualising and executing the project from ground up beginning April 2019 and seeing it all come together despite the Covid-19 pandemic has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the process.

“It’s been fun but also a challenge because I have been working on this venture and tying everything together and, at the same time, also working together with dad in certain aspects of the group, which has honed my time management skills,” says Birla, who is expected to take up a bigger role in the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) soon.

“He has such a wide gamut of businesses across sectors to handle, it’s fascinating to see how he goes about that,” Birla says, adding that “with dad, obviously I work quite closely with him in some businesses at ABG, and I always tend to bounce my thoughts and ideas off him.”

In the process of setting up his venture, his mother Neerja Birla also played a big role - by helping him understand people.

“My mother is a great people’s person and I’ve learnt a lot about dealing with people from her,” he says. The pandemic has made him look inward and think deeper. “It made me a deeper thinker in general – of problems and solutions and how to work things out to make things better,” Birla says.

He is looking forward to returning to work in a world free of online meetings.