Sunita Kohli

She taught at Loreto Convent Lucknow, before the "accidental" start of her career in interior design. After her marriage, she and her husband started frequenting kabadi shops in their free time, looking for 19th century English furniture and lamps in Lucknow, Rajasthan and the hill resorts of Dehradun and Mussoorie. Soon Kohli converted her interest into an antiquarian business through which she sold Davenport desks and Regency wine tables. She learnt restoration of furniture from local master-craftsmen, which led to the start of her restoration business.

In 2014, she was nominated as the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal by the MHRD, Government of India, for a period of five years. In 2019, she joined the board of advisors at Rishihood University.

In 2005, Sunita Kohli was instrumental in the conceptualisation and founding of the 'Museum of Women in the Arts, India' (MOWA, INDIA). Within MOWA, an NGO is being established for the empowerment of rural master craftswomen. She has been on the National Advisory Board of the 'National Museum of Women in the Arts', Washington DC.

In 2004, her younger daughter Kohelika Kohli, an architect and a Pratt Institute of Design, New York graduate returned to India, after working with 'Oliver Cope Architects' and interning with 'Foster and Partners'. She created an architectural firm, 'Kohelika Kohli Architects'. Eventually in 2010, they formed K2INDIA, bringing together all their respective companies. In 2010, she again got involved in the conservation work of Rashtrapati Bhavan, after a gap of 19 years.

She was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1992.

In 1992, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India "for contribution to national life by excellence in the field of Interior Design and Architectural Restoration". In the same year, she received the "Mahila Shiromani Award", recognising women of achievement, by Mother Teresa.

Over the years she has designed several hotels, resorts and private residences in India and Sri Lanka. In Lahore, Pakistan, she has also worked on the restoration and conversion into a boutique hotel, of a late Sikh-period haveli in the Old City, over-looking the 17th century world heritage sites of the Lahore Fort and the Badshahi Mosque. In the early 1990s, she did the interior design of the British Council Building in New Delhi. She also designed the National Assembly Building in Thimpu, Bhutan. This Parliament Building was again worked on in 2010, by K2INDIA for the SAARC Summit in Bhutan. She has also been involved in the restoration and redecoration of numerous British Raj period buildings in New Delhi, mainly designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Robert Tor Russell and Sir Herbert Baker, including Rashtrapati Bhawan (formerly Viceroy's House), the Prime Minister's Office, Parliament House and Hyderabad House.

Sunita Kohli is an Indian interior designer, architectural restorer and furniture manufacturer. She had restored and decorated Rashtrapati Bhavan (the President's House), Parliament House Colonnade (1985–1989), the Prime Minister's Office and Hyderabad House in New Delhi.

She established Sunita Kohli Interior Designs, an interior design firm in New Delhi, in 1971. In the following year was established Sunita Kohli & Company, which manufactures contemporary classic furniture and fine reproductions of Art Deco, Biedermeier and Anglo-Indian colonial furniture. Most recently, her company K2india whose CEO is her architect daughter Kohelika Kohli launched a fine collection of Mid-Century Furniture. Her career, added another dimension, when in the mid-1970s she established in partnership, another design firm which was commissioned to design a small hotel for the Oberoi Group, near the Khajuraho temples, The Oberoi in Bhubaneshwar and the Hotel Babylon in Baghdad. This firm closed but other hotel design projects followed in Cairo, Aswan and El-Arish in Egypt- The Oberoi Marriott Mena House Hotel and Casino, overlooking the Pyramids of Giza; two luxury hotel cruise boats on the Nile for the Oberoi Group; The Oberoi Aswan in Upper Egypt and The Oberoi in El-Arish, on the north coast of the Sinai Peninsula on the Mediterranean Sea. In the mid-1990s, she designed The Oberoi Philae Cruiser, another luxury hotel boat. For Mr. PRS Oberoi, she restored and decorated, for his personal use, the 250-year-old Naila Fort, near Jaipur.

In 1971, Sunita Kohli married Ramesh Kohli, an equity investor and alumni of the Doon School in Dehradun, St. Stephens College and Delhi University's Faculty of Law. They have three children- Kokila, Suryaveer and Kohelika and three grandchildren Anadya, Zohravar and Aaryaman.