From a corporate job to a Gurugram bakery: Nisha Yadav’s second career

Nisha Yadav’s production unit is in Sector 31; her first observation on moving to Gurugram was not its skyline but its pace.

Yadav, who grew up in Goa, studied there, taught as a professor in Mumbai and later worked in the corporate sector, moved to Sector 82 in Manesar in 2021. Two years later, she left her job and started Tendre Bouche, a boutique bakery that now serves customers across Gurugram.

She saw room for a dessert-led business in a city already crowded with restaurants. “People here don’t hesitate to experiment, and that gives entrepreneurs the confidence to create something different,” Yadav says. Her aim, she says, was to make desserts that customers would remember rather than simply consume.

A city built around busy calendars

Gurugram’s workforce, office celebrations and delivery networks have made food businesses part of the city’s daily schedule. Bakery orders can be tied to business meetings, birthdays, festivals and weekends, while the city’s mix of residents from across India and abroad has widened demand for global cuisines, pastries and premium bakery products.

For Yadav, food is also personal. “Food connects people emotionally, and desserts become part of celebrations and memories,” she says.

That demand has helped shape a new professional chapter, but the economics remain demanding. Yadav points to heavy traffic, expensive commercial rentals and rising operating costs as continuing pressures on food entrepreneurs. “Running a food business requires constant planning because costs keep increasing,” she says.

She nevertheless describes Gurugram as a place where an idea can find customers if its founder is prepared to work at it. For the former corporate professional, the shift from Sector 82 to a Sector 31 production unit has become a business built around the city’s appetite for something sweet and different.