Top 3 influential Indian women entrepreneurs who have built a successful venture

In the past, a woman as an entrepreneur was something comparatively unheard of. While women have established themselves in the fields of healthcare, education, technology, and even research. However, earlier there were a few women who could make it to the list of Indian success stories in business.

Today, Indian-origin women entrepreneurs have made their undistinguishable mark on the international scenario.

Here, we shall see the 3 who have made a remarkable difference.

Shivani Siroya

Founder and CEO of Tala, a smartphone credit lending application

Today, Shivani Siroya is among the well-known Indian entrepreneurs.

Shivani Siroya holds an MPH in Health Economics and International Policy from Columbia University. She holds a BA in International Relations from Wesleyan University.

Siroya has a great deal of professional experience in global health, investment banking, and microfinance.

Founded by Shivani Siroya, Tala facilitates financial access to small business owners worldwide through mobile tracking tools. Tala provides direct flexible financing for assisting businesses lift themselves out of poverty.

Before Tala, Siroya worked towards health costing at UNFPA. She was part of Mergers & Acquisitions at Health Net and Citigroup.

Shivani Siroya is also on the board of Young Women Social Entrepreneurs.

Tala is among the leading financial technology companies in the emerging market. Till date, many individuals have borrowed credit through Tala.

Tala is a smartphone application that provides instant, personalized credit to underserved individuals. Currently, Tala offers services to customers in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and East Africa.

Traditional financial systems no longer work for a majority of the population. As per Shivani Siroya, only around 31% of the adult population globally is covered by a credit bureau. Tala seeks to address this shortfall in the need for credit.

Starting off as an investment banker, in 2011 Shivani Siroya launched Tala, a mobile lending application that extends microloans to small business owners.

Tala has been named by Forbes as one of the world’s Top 50 FinTech companies. The work being done by Tala has earned recognition from TED, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, among others.

Tala is headquartered in Santa Monica with additional offices in Bangalore, Mexico City, Nairobi, and Manila.

Neha Narkehede

Co-Founder, Board Member at Confluent

Born and brought up in Pune, Neha Narkehede moved to the United States in 2006 for pursuing Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, following which Narkehede secured a job at Oracle.

Confluent builds Kafka tools for companies. Some of the most well-known clients of Confluent include — Uber, Netflix, and Goldman Sachs.

Neha Narkehede features at #29 on Forbes’ list of America’s Self-Made Women 2021.

It was in 2011 that 3 LinkedIn employees — Neha Narkhede, Jay Kreps, and Jun Rao — developed a technical tool for handling data streams that came from profile updates and user clicks. Realizing the potential of the tool, they later outsourced the software, building up a company around it in 2014 named Confluent.

On June 28, 2021, all of the co-founders of Confluent became billionaires in their own right.

Falguni Nayar

Founder and CEO, Nykaa

Falguni Nayar graduated from IIM Ahmedabad. Beginning a career with A.F. Ferguson & Co., Nayar then spent 18 years with the Kotak Mahindra bank.

Featuring on the list of Asia’s Power Businesswomen 2019 by Forbes Asia, Nayar is also on the board of various companies, including Tata Technologies, ACC, and Dabur.

Nykaa was founded by Falguni Nayar in 2012 with the aim of building a multi-brand beauty-based retail business.

By enabling brands to reach even the remote corners of the country thereby empowering consumer choice, Nykaa is today one of India’s leading beauty retailers.

Today, Nykaa is a beauty and lifestyle retail empire that includes 1,500+ brands in its portfolio. Nykaa also has its own private label.

Products can be purchased from Nykaa either online on through any of the 68 physical stores dotted across India.

Indian entrepreneurs in general, and Indian women in particular, have garnered much attention globally due to their significant contribution in various fields

The foray of Indian women into entrepreneurship is probably the best that women empowerment can get. Indian success stories keep being added to day by day.