Anjula Acharia reflects on her lifelong obsession with “firsts,” from betting on South Asian talent before data existed to building a global cultural movement. As Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s manager and an early backer of Bumble and ClassPass, she explains how trusting instinct, sharing access, and challenging conventional wisdom helped her turn overlooked markets into undeniable forces in pop culture and business.
Anjula Acharia says she has an affinity for “firsts”, and as Robb Report turns a year older, we decided to chat with the very woman whose many firsts have shaped the map for South Asian representation globally. Enterprising and determined, Anjula Acharia has managed to intersect the world of global venture capitalism and entertainment flawlessly, creating a global cultural movement. The visionary manager behind Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who took a leap of faith from the shores of Bollywood to navigate Hollywood from ground zero.
The lady with the Midas touch, Acharia’s entrepreneurial brilliance lies in an uncanny ability to spot value where others see risk, a superpower that led her to back tech titans Bumble and ClassPass in their infancy. But her most enduring legacy is her work as a global bridge builder for the South Asian diaspora. Through her newly minted joint venture Five Junction Records with Warner Music Group, she is scaling South Asian artistry into a dominant economic and cultural force across Western markets. Acharia doesn’t just follow trends—she actively finances and designs the future of global pop culture.
Robb Report India (RR): What was your first professional win and what did it mean to you?
Anjula: One of the first professional wins I’ll always remember was realising that an instinct I had that South Asian culture and talent could have a meaningful place in the global mainstream wasn’t simply a personal conviction. It could become a business.
Early in my career, there wasn’t a blueprint for what I wanted to build. In fact, many people told me the audience wasn’t large enough—which is pretty remarkable when you consider that roughly one-fifth of the world’s population is South Asian!
Seeing those instincts eventually validated when I raised money from some incredibly influential venture capitalists and music mogul Jimmy Iovine taught me that you don’t need everyone to believe in your vision. You just have to find the right partners.
RR: How do you celebrate your firsts?
Anjula: This is a funny one. When you’ve signed a deal or made something happen, you often don’t announce or publicise it until much later. And you don’t want to celebrate until everything is signed and sealed. By the time you finally go public, you’re already well into the next deal, which means you rarely actually celebrate!
As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve become much more intentional about stopping and appreciating those moments, particularly with the people who helped make them happen. No meaningful first happens completely alone, and I think it’s important to recognise the people who believed in you along the way. For me, the celebration is really about the community you’ve built.
RR: What professional or personal first are you still waiting to happen?
Anjula: I’m still obsessed with firsts because I believe there are so many ceilings left to break. I’m excited about creating a larger cultural movement. We’ve seen it with K-pop, K-beauty, and K-dramas; it became an entire movement in global pop culture. I’d love to see a similar trajectory for South Asian culture, art, music, beauty and fashion.
One of the things I’m most excited about is helping create a South Asian global music superstar whose success isn’t qualified by their ethnicity, someone whose heritage is an important part of who they are, but whose music and relevance are completely universal.
With Five Junction Records and Management, my joint venture with Warner Music, I have the opportunity to build the infrastructure around artists who can achieve that kind of global impact. I want to help create firsts that change what the next generation believes is possible.
RR: What first lesson did this special first teach you?
Anjula: That consensus is overrated.
If you wait for everyone else to understand your idea before pursuing it, you’re probably already too late. Some of the most important things I’ve done began with people questioning whether there was even a market for them.
I learned to trust what I could see before I had the data, infrastructure or outside validation to prove it. That instinct has shaped how I approach talent, investments and businesses today.
RR: Who was the first person to open a professional door for you, and how did it change your life?
Anjula: There have been different people at different stages of my life who took a chance on me, and I’ve never forgotten that. My sister, Jimmy Iovine, and Priyanka are all people who have been incredibly influential in my life and career.
But I also learned very early that you have to be willing to bet on yourself before you can expect anyone else to.
That has influenced how I operate today. Whether I’m looking at an artist, entrepreneur or company, I don’t necessarily wait for the rest of the industry to validate what I see. If I believe someone is extraordinary, I want to be one of the people willing to open that first door.
RR: What were the first challenges and how did you overcome them?
Anjula: The biggest challenge was getting people to see opportunities in communities and markets that had historically been underestimated.
When you’re challenging conventional wisdom, people can give you a hundred reasons why something won’t work. I learned not to spend all my energy trying to convince everyone. Instead, I focused on inspiring a few influential people whom I admire to go on entrepreneurial journeys with me.
RR: Do you remember your first big failure? What did it teach you?
Anjula: I remember the feeling more than one specific failure, the realization that you can work incredibly hard, do everything you think is right and still not get the outcome you expected.
There have been artists, investments and business ideas throughout my career that didn’t unfold exactly as I envisioned. What I learned is that failure is often information.
You can either become emotionally attached to the original plan or look at what the experience is telling you and pivot. Some of the things that felt like disappointments at the time ultimately redirected me toward much bigger opportunities.