When it comes to entrepreneurship, Ankiti Bose is something of a legend. Thanks to the rapid success of Zilingo – the business-to-business ecommerce platform that she co-founded with Dhruv Kapoor in 2015 – she’s on the fast track to becoming the first Indian woman to found a billion-dollar startup. And she’s only 29 years old.
To make it that big that fast – she co-founded Zilingo when she was 23 – it would seem as though entrepreneurship was in her DNA. But that’s actually not the case. Ankiti’s upbringing was surprisingly humble. Her mother was a college lecturer and her father worked for the government; a stint that saw Ankiti moving from one small Indian city to another.
So how did this down-to-earth, former McKinsey & Company management consultant make the fateful leap into entrepreneurship? In her words, “foolish courage”.
“There was a lot of foolish courage involved in starting up,” Ankiti tells The CEO Magazine. “It was a decision completely driven by passion and optimism. I saw the opportunity in South-East Asia; the growth of the region looked like it could be phenomenal because it was super under-penetrated. But had I over-analysed the situation, it would’ve been harder to make the decision.”
Denne historien er fra May 2021-utgaven av The CEO Magazine Asia.
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Denne historien er fra May 2021-utgaven av The CEO Magazine Asia.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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