Women Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing The B2B Landscape

Women entrepreneurs are becoming the face of almost all sectors of the economy and the traditionally male-dominated B2B space is one such sector where women’s participation has been increasing.

The increasing presence of women as entrepreneurs has led to the change in the demographic characteristics of the business and economic growth of the country. Women-owned businesses enterprises are playing a prominent role in society inspiring others and generating more employment opportunities in the country.

There is a need for sustainable growth of women entrepreneurs, to promote balanced growth in the country. By 2022 more than 1 billion women are set to join the economy as leaders, producers, employers, employees, and entrepreneurs. 

The contribution of women to the economy is at the highest point and keeps growing as we speak. Various researches have shown that women-led businesses are outperforming their peers. Businesses, in the past few decades, have been realizing the importance of women in the top leadership to drive sustainable financial returns.

Women entrepreneurs are becoming the face of almost all sectors of the economy and the traditionally male-dominated B2B space is one such sector where women’s participation has been increasing.

Four of such women entrepreneurs who are changing the B2B landscape in the country. 

 1. Smiti Bhatt Deorah, Co-Founder and COO, Advantage Club.

Smiti Bhatt Deorah is a young and enthusiastic entrepreneur who co-founded the Advantage club with Sourabh Deorah. She has worked with Microsoft in the past and has done her master’s in Computer Science from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

With substantial experience in B2B relationship building and account management, Smiti launched Advantage Club with Sourabh in 2016. The company is an employee-centric organization and offers companies curated deals, rewards, and offers from more than 200 brands.

For Smiti, it all began while working at Microsoft when she felt valued and rewarded by the employee perks and benefits she received. Smiti and Sourabh together recognized the potential employee rewards platforms had and came back to start India’s first employee reward and recognition platform. 

Today the company is profitable and has over 6000 companies as clients, including Café Coffee Day, Samsung, Lifestyle, PNB Home Loans, Max Healthcare, and several others. Personalized rewards offered under Advantage Club are a measure that helps companies to improve employee satisfaction and engagement.

2. Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, and COO, Mobikwik.

Upasana, a Standford University alumni, co-founded digital payments and financial services startup Mobikwik with Bipin Preet Singh back in 2009 to simplify payments in India. The company started as an e-wallet service and today has expanded in three business lines – consumer payments, payment gateway, and financial services. 

Before starting a venture of her own Upasana headed many high impact projects for companies like HSBC and PayPal and gained immense experience in payment systems. She is one of the most recognized faces in the fintech space in the country.

3. Rashi Aggarwal, Co-Founder, and COO, Zypp.

Rashi Aggarwal co-founded Zypp India’s 1st electric bike and e- Scooter sharing app and platform in 2017 with Akash Gupta. This dockless eco-friendly bike-sharing platform started as a B2C business, and recently it has shifted focus towards the B2B sector with clients ranging from food delivery business to e-commerce establishments. Previously a fashion entrepreneur, this is the second entrepreneurial venture undertaken by Rashi who dreams of a cleaner and carbon-neutral world.

4. Ankiti Bose, Co-Founder, Zilingo.

Mumbai based, Ankiti Bose, is the first Indian female co-founder and CEO of a unicorn status startup. She has been featured in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list in 2018 and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 along with Bloomberg 50 in 2019. Her achievements come at the back of Zilingo, a technology and commerce platform in the fashion industry that offers services for players across the fashion supply chain.