Naazneen Katrak, founder of Mustang Socks, was honoured with the Golden MSME award for Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. Golden Maharashtra MSME Awards recognise and reward Maharashtra’s entrepreneurs, and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The award celebrates the strong culture of manufacturing and its achievers. On receiving the award, Katrak said, ´I can´t believe it has been 26 years since I started Mustang! Back then, it was unusual to see women in the manufacturing sector and there were some speed bumps along the way. But now, the journey seems well worth it. I am so glad that with government-backing platforms like this, women and young entrepreneurs are being encouraged to follow their passion – even if their passion is making good quality socks. I am humbled and I thank you all for the love that Mustang Socks has got!´
Katrak single-handedly established Mustang Socks 26 years ago, establishing herself as a pioneer in the Indian hosiery industry. She understood the need of quality cotton socks back in the nineties, and combined perfect cotton quality, novel design concepts with the latest technology. In 2004, Naazneen collaborated with Lubeina Shahpurwala, who teamed up with her as co-director at Mustang Socks. Mustang Socks today manufactures more than 1 million pairs of socks every month, and has 36 distributors across India.
MSME Awards is a noteworthy enterprise, in line of the government´s ´Make in India´ initiative, to boost the growth of the MSME industry as well as honour women entrepreneurs in Maharashtra. The jury for the awards ceremony comprised of stalwarts such as DR Dogra , MD & CEO, Care Ratings Ltd; Nilesh Shah, MD, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management; and Milind Sarwate, Wadhwan Global Capital, Ex CFO ´ Marico Industries Ltd, amongst others.