Neelofa

With more than seven million followers on Instagram, Naelofar has become a fashion icon for many Muslim women who wear the hijab, or 'tudung' as it is referred to in the region of Malaysia and Singapore. She has fronted campaigns for Dior, Lancome and Swarovski, representing modest fashion at shows in New York, Milan and Paris Fashion Week.[12]

She became the first Malaysian to win the 2019 Influencer Awards at Monaco under the Entrepreneur category on 7 October 2019.[13] Each nomination was chosen by a jury, with the nominations coming from all over the world.

On 8 December 2017, AirAsia appointed Neelofa as its new non-executive independent director. Tony Fernandes, the AirAsia Group chief executive officer described Neelofa as "super smart, young and independent".[14] She resigned as director on 19 August 2020 due to "her other personal commitments”.[15]

Neelofa founded and helmed NH Prima Sdn Bhd as its director since 2014.[16] Her hijab brand, "Naelofar Hijab" is sold in more than 37 countries including Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Australia, UAE, United Kingdom and Europe.[16]

In June 2017, the brand took on new heights when it collaborated with AirAsia to design hijab for female pilots of AirAsia and AirAsia X.[17]

In conjunction with her birthday celebration in 2018, Neelofa launched a turban range, “Be Lofa Turban” at Zouk KL.[1] The new turban line was sold out in less than 24 hours after launching. However, she received backlash from Internet commentators for holding her product launch in the nightclub . On 1 March 2018, she has issued a public statement of apology saying "I would like to sincerely apologise for causing stress and negative sentiments on the selection of the venue."[18]

In 2019, she has partnered with Starbucks to produce the Starbucks x Naelofar exclusive collection which retailed only at Starbucks.[19] Within five years, she has sold more than 10 million hijabs.[20]

In December 2019, Neelofa introduced the Nilofa brand with the banana milk as its first product, to the Malaysian market under the Nilofa Group name. An advertisement of the product claimed that the milk would have benefits such as reducing obesity, lowering high blood pressure, increasing metabolism rate and removing toxins from the body.[21] UK-based general surgeon Dr Nur Amalina Che Bakri used Twitter to call out these claims false advertising.[22]

Neelofa's response was that the advertising was published by the marketing agency without her company's approval. She kept her team small and had outsourced the marketing. The controversy led Malaysian Ministry of Health (MOH) to visit the factory to investigate the processes of the milk product behind the claims. MOH found no major issues with the packaging but gave some recommendations concerning packaging the product to clearly communicate the product as a banana milk.[23]