All The Boss Ladies

We need more cohorts and consortiums that nurture women entrepreneurs

- Anu Singh Choudhary

“MY name is Sangeetha Krishnan. I am a Mechanical Engineer; I provide transformer service repairs through electrical contract works.”

This introduction in a class full of women entreprenuers from across sectors and states has made everyone turn their heads towards the speaker, a petite woman. That she has been running an all-male team of contractors, electricians and mechanics is yet another testimony to the fact that if a boss lady comes down to owning her space, she will do so—stereotypes and hurdles notwithstanding.

Our class of 64 is full of such women, handpicked through the rigorous globally-run Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Entrepreneurs Program, run in India by the NSRCEL at IIM-B. Working in ed-tech, agri-tech, fin-tech, IT services, legal services, hospitality, healthcare, food processing, heavy industries, sustainability, design, garment manufacturing, entertainment and media (the sector I am representing)—we are a diverse cohort. Forty-seven per cent of us are first-generation entrepreneurs and 38 per cent are in tech-driven businesses. Thirty-one per cent are co-founders, 33 per cent, solo entrepreneurs.

All of us are in unconventional workspaces (which workspace is not unconventional for a woman!). Many of us are the first generation of financially independent 'working' women, largely raised by homemakers, who by the way, work as hard and more, without any appreciation or reward.