Business Enterprise of the Year

An observer, an old soul and an incredibly talented young entrepreneur, Sausan Khan Moyeen scooped up the Business Enterprise of the Year award at the Colors Platinum Businesswoman Awards 2019 with her dream project called Enchanted Events. Persa Sanjana Hussain from Colors gets into conversation with this beautiful mother of two to crack her code of translating her passion into an enterprise which is not just known but also loved by all.

This remarkable success is probably down to the fact that Sausan Khan knows exactly what she wants, never straying from her true self. Growing up as a quiet child her insecurities started brewing when she found herself evidently lacking in physical strength and stamina while playing with friends.

However, living in a joint family and having spent most of her time playing with younger cousins meant that her ‘disability’ which was a symptom of unidentified congenital heart disease went unnoticed. As a matter of fact, it went unnoticed for years to come.

As years passed by, her skills to weave conversations with anyone and everyone along with debate classes made her steal the show at extracurricular activities. That is when she finally got a true taste of her potential and rose up to the occasion of letting her inner artist come out to play. Being an avid reader, she says, the value of being savvy with people is sort of embedded in her system.

Studying architecture, and having a second major in literature, even back then she is identified as a designer while she deftly completed projects and earned great scores. She decided to tie the knot at a rather early age and became the mother of a beautiful daughter in no time. It was after having two children and a stroke that she stumbled upon the part of herself that knew how to immaculately organize and design events. Her talent initially manifested at the birthday parties of her own children and was quick to win hearts.

Her son’s birthday led to a relative asking her to design a birthday party in July. In August a stroke and a fairly long and tiring recovery left her reconsidering everything but the relative still insisted her to complete the event, being a big fan of her work. While she was unsure, her husband insisted that she did it to take her mind off all that happened and ever since that day, she never looked back.

Although Facebook marketing wasn’t a thing back then, word of mouth played out to be an integral  tool for her business as the whole city began taking notice of her great work. Fast forward to 2019, Enchanted Events is known to design events that look like nothing short of daydreams – true to its name as one would point out.  Enchanted Events slowly and beautifully grew ten folds from a passion project to one that has designed 1,200 custom events. Starting from a small store room and a few leftover party props from a birthday party it now has three massive warehouses and is a name to be relied upon as each client would testify.

Sausan says being a mother is the most important thing in her life but being a designer was like a natural handle. Interestingly, she met her husband while designing a café for him. Her dream of opening up a restaurant with her husband someday was always on both their bucket list and got ticked off with the recent opening of O’Play, a restaurant with a play area tucked in a neat corner at Gulshan.

The entrepreneur relishes on the small details in life and she loves surprising people. She dismisses discussing futuristic plans and believes in living life for the present. To add to which, she prioritizes the upcoming winter season along with the plans on growing O’Play to be her primary focus at work for the moment.

“Each event is like an architectural project that begins with something completely new and is scraped of once done without ensuing a repetitive pattern.”

“Everything about me is always about now. I do not take a second for granted. I’ve had a heart surgery and I wasn’t supposed to live for more than 10 years but I am living now, Alhamdulillah [Praise be to Allah]. So I make it a point to finish each day as if it were the last. That is the same approach I take for each of my event. Each event is like an architectural project that begins with something completely new and is scraped of once done without ensuing a repetitive pattern,” she expresses her feeling and conviction.

Although she finds herself getting very personally involved with her work, be it report-card day or school drama she always makes sure that she attends the most important milestones when it comes to her children and at the same time does the best she can for each client.

She defies the need to satisfy social expectations and rather believes in creating her own utopia. She points out, “People expect a mother to raise her children as if she weren’t working. And expect her to work as if she weren’t raising children.”

The awardee, who believes in taking the success with a pinch of salt, explains that there will be things that will be missed because perfection is a myth. She adds that everyone has his/her own perfect ways of being both mother and worker but how their family supports them can form a crucial part of their success.

The diva makes pulling off a working mother look easy and does so with humility. When asked about her mantra, she concludes sharing her ideology of the triple H: “You’ve got to be humble, honest and hard-working. When you focus on being all these three you come close to maintaining balance. It’s not just about being a mother or an entrepreneur, it is also about being a wife. Sustaining relationship and acing work has balance at its heart. You have to always remember where you started from and lock away any other identity in your wardrobe; lock it up when you come to work.”

What is it being a mother?
It is the best gift in the world. It is the best gift from God. 

What is it like getting married?
Annoying but when you are married 

What is like being an entrepreneur?
Stressful but highly rewarding when you remember where you come from and learn to stay content.

What is your pet peeve?
Lack of commitment.

What was your goal as a child?
I wanted to be everything. One day a pilot and the other day a pilot.

What is an ideal plan?
Relax in a corner and eat to our hearts content.

What’s the one thing you love about Bangladesh?
The people 

What’s the one thing you hate about it?
The traffic jam