Celebrating our Vertex Female Leaders 2023
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As an investor into 20 women-led startups, we know that navigating business as a female leader can be tough and that's why at Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, we are fiercely supportive of our women entrepreneurs and business leaders.
One key observation we have is that women leaders seldom gather enough credit for the amazing work they do. So every year, we celebrate our women leaders' achievements - both big and small. We do it through interviewing them on our podcasts and sharing their beautiful untold stories of grit, strength and perseverance.
May their stories also encourage other women to become entrepreneurs and stay strong and resilient in the face of any adversity.
Podcast
In the final installment of our International Women’s Day series, we bring you Episode 7 of our Hard Truths by Vertex Podcast.
Amidst Indonesia’s rapidly growing content creation market, Paulina helps influencers earn a living as the CMO of TipTip. Paulina has over 20 years of experience in marketing, brand building, and innovation for leading luxury brands, and emerged as a top-5 finalist in The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition. What are her learnings from being on the Apprentice? What is Vertex’s investment thesis for TipTip and the content-creation vertical? What does it take to succeed as an influencer? And what are some Hard Truths she has learned along the way?
Watch it on YouTube.
Listen on Apple, Spotify and Google.
View Notes and Full Transcript for Episode 7.
In conjunction with International Women’s Day, we bring you Episode 6 of our Hard Truths by Vertex Podcast.
Ria is a mother of two and works full-time connecting carbon projects and businesses looking to reduce their carbon footprint, as the founder and CEO of Fairatmos. Puiyan Leung is also a mother of two, and leads deals across Southeast Asia and India as a Partner at Vertex Ventures SEA&I. How do they find the balance between being change-leaders at work and the demands of motherhood? How do they navigate the nascent but developing Southeast Asian carbon markets? And what are the Hard Truths they’ve learned in doing these?
Tune in to HTBV6 to find out!
Watch it on YouTube.
Listen on Apple, Spotify and Google.
View Notes and Full Transcript for Episode 6
In conjunction with International Women’s Day, we bring you Episode 5 of our Hard Truths by Vertex Podcast.
Nelly Nurmalasari may have grown up in a small town but has always had huge ambitions. Her first exposure to female empowerment came in the form of guidance from her mother, encouraging her to dream big, and teaching her how to always ask the right questions. This put Nelly on a path to careers at BCG and Traveloka, and an MBA at Wharton. Now she inspires and empowers so many others. What was her journey to joining a team that unlocks opportunities for millions of mass workers? How did she become CEO of Pintarnya? And what are the Hard Truths about turning a shared vision into a reality?
Tune in to find out!
Watch it on YouTube.
Listen on Apple, Spotify and Google.
View Notes and Full Transcript for Episode 5
Episode 4 - The Truths About Disrupting India's Age-Old Manufacturing Industry (01 Mar 2023)
In conjunction with International Women’s Day, we bring you Episode 4 of our Hard Truths by Vertex Podcast.
As a second-time founder, Sonam Motwani has a wealth of experience and unique insights into the manufacturing industry in India, which she has used to build Karkhana.io. And Kanika Mayar is one of just 9 senior female #VC investment professionals in India, with experience leading deals and building companies across various sectors. How did this female dream-team (coincidentally) come to be? What does it take to build a business and stand out in the male-dominated manufacturing industry? And what are some Hard Truths our two guests have learned along the way?
Tune in to find out!
Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hard-truths-by-vertex/id1659392336
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2JMf3yPwhuOIY85rpx5B2Y
Or read the full transcript here: https://www.crazytokmedia.com/podcast/ht4-truths-about-disrupting-indias-age-old-manufacturing-industry-sonam-motwani-karkhana/
Listen on the other podcast platforms:
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Stories of strength and leadership
Achitha Jacob – Proactive for Her
She dropped out of Harvard Business School to change the lives of 600 million women in India by providing access to Femcare (Read here)
Cindy Kua – Sunday
Many know Cindy Kua as the cofounder and CEO of Sunday, a successful Bangkok-based Insurtech start-up, but not much of what makes her tick as a person. Learn more about her, especially how she overcame the odds to get to where she is. (Read here)
Congyu Li – Storehub
Congyu Li is a rare female CTO and cofounder of StoreHub, an omnichannel operating system empowering over 15,000 F&B and retail SMEs across SEA. Learn about how she took the leap of faith that led her to cofound StoreHub, and what tips she has for aspiring female founders. (Read here)
Daphne Ng – Dedoco
A serial entrepreneur, Daphne Ng founded Dedoco to address the pain points of privacy protection and document security requirements that regulated industries like banks and financial institutions needed to comply with. What's her story and what does she believe in? (Read here)
Elena Ionenko - Turnkey Lender
Elena Ionenko is COO and a co-founder of TurnKey Lender, a B2B SaaS company that offers an AI-powered lending automation platform as well as decision management solutions and services. Learn how she was inspired by her mother and how TurnKey Lender managed to evacuate 90% of their employees within two hours of the Russia-Ukraine conflict starting. (Read here)
Evie Zhang – Coinomo
Evie Zhang is the founder and CEO of Coinomo, an integrated investment platform for cryptocurrency. Her journey has come full circle, going from working as an investor at VVSEAI, to founding a startup that is part of our portfolio. Find out about how this happened, as well as her brief career in filmmaking. (Read here)
Janice Wong
Chef Janice Wong is the founder and CEO and founder of Janice Wong Singapore, enticing customers with her multi-product, multi-channel confectionery brand. Learn how two separate incidents in Australia, one happy and one tragic, ignited her passion for creation. (Read here)
Phuong Ha - Metub
Ha Thi Tu Phuong is not an influencer herself, but as the co-founder and CEO of Metub, she empowers more than 2,500 local influencers through Metub's content creation and video hosting platform. Find out how her childhood shaped her business acumen and work ethic, and how she overcome the challenges she's faced along the way. (Read here)
Roshni Mahtani Cheung - The ParentInc
Roshni Mahtani Cheung is the founder and CEO of The Parentinc, known for their flagship brand, theAsianparent. Find out how she juggles being a 'mother to all' in her multiple roles: running her company, mentoring founders, sitting on the board of a non-profit, being an executive producer of a documentary, and being a mother to her six-year-old. (Read here)
Sonam Motwani – Karkhana.io
Sonam Motwani, founder of Karkhana.io, is a unicorn on many fronts – a sole founder in a male-dominated industry, a rare woman who led a team of 20 to make electric race cars at Formula Student UK back in college and studied aerospace engineering at IIT Bombay, just to name a few. Now she started a platform that enables flexible manufacturing. (Read here)
Supata Amornvivat – SCB Abacus
Dr. Supata Amornvivat is the founder and CEO of SCB Abacus, a digital lending platform. She has a degree from Harvard and a PhD from MIT, but what sets her apart is her dream of transforming the lives of 290 million unbanked people across SEA. Learn the part her role models played in her journey building SCB Abacus, and how she juggles family and work. (Read here)
Utari Octavianty – Aruna
Utari Octavianty is the co-founder and Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) of Aruna, a one-stop platform and end-to-end supply chain aggregator, enabling Indonesia’s fishermen and fish farmers to access a larger, global marketplace. Learn about Utari's dedication to empowering women and communities, and how a newborn came to be named after the company. (Read here)
It takes a village to nurture successful women entrepreneurs, read about what else we do as a supportive investor here.
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