She walked into a male-dominated industry at 22, and nearly two decades later, the nation is taking notice.
Pema YK Loyi, Managing Director of Iconic Automobiles, has been honoured with the prestigious ‘Woman Transforming Auto Retail (East)’ award at the 9th ETAuto Retail Forum 2026, held in New Delhi on August 25. The recognition, presented as part of the ETAuto Retail Honours 2026 — organised by the automotive platform of The Economic Times Group — places Loyi firmly among the most significant names in India’s automobile dealership landscape. For Arunachal Pradesh, it is a moment worth pausing on.
A National Stage, A Northeast Story
The ETAuto Retail Forum is not a small gathering. It brings together automobile dealers, original equipment manufacturers, technology companies and financial institutions to map out where India’s auto retail industry is headed. Being called out on that stage — specifically for “transformative leadership and contribution to creating new possibilities in automotive retail” — means something. And for someone from the Northeast, where representation in these national circles has always been limited, it means even more.
Built from Scratch, Without a Rulebook
Loyi entered the automotive world at 22. That alone deserves a moment of recognition — no safety net, no easy path, just a decision to build something in a space where women were rarely seen. Today, Iconic Automobiles is an authorised dealer for Mahindra & Mahindra passenger and commercial vehicles across Arunachal Pradesh, operating multiple showrooms and service centres spread across the state. One facility in Itanagar holds a particularly distinct title — the country’s first all-women-run Mahindra showroom. That is not a coincidence. It reflects something intentional about how Loyi runs her business.
Recognition Has Been Building
This ETAuto award is not out of nowhere. In 2025, she was invited as a prominent speaker at the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations’ 13th Auto Summit during the ‘Women in FADA — Driven by Courage’ session. The same year, Bank of Baroda honoured her as a leading woman entrepreneur from the North-Eastern Region during its 118th Founders’ Day. Each recognition has been pointing in the same direction — that Loyi is not just building a business, she is building a case for what leadership from the Northeast can look like on a national scale.
Why This Matters for the Region
States like Maharashtra, Delhi-NCR, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have long dominated the national automotive conversation. The Northeast barely gets a mention. That is exactly why Loyi’s recognition carries weight beyond the personal. It puts Arunachal Pradesh on a map that rarely acknowledges it, and signals to a younger generation in the region that building something significant — even in an industry this competitive, this traditionally exclusive — is possible from here.
The road she is paving is not just for automobiles. It is for everyone watching from the Northeast, wondering if their ambitions have a place on the national stage. They do.
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