Ankiti Bose

Bose is from India.[2] She studied mathematics and economics at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.[3]

Bose started her career working at McKinsey & Company and Sequoia Capital in Bangalore.[4] After a trip to the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market[5] Bose noticed that fashion markets in Southeast Asia had immense room for penetration and growth.[3] The Chatuchak Weekend Market includes over 11,000 independent merchants lacking an online presence.[3] Whilst there was investment in improving access to the internet, Bose recognized that retailers were not trained in financing, scaling-up, website design and procurement neither well equipped to compete with large global players.[4]

In 2015 Bose left her position as an investment analyst at Sequoia Capital to launch her own company, Zilingo.[6] Bose was only twenty three when she founded Zilingo, an e-commerce platform that offers B2B focused services.[7] She moved to Singapore in 2016, where she developed Zilingo software and supply chain solutions.[8] In 2019 Zilingo raised $226 million in Series D fundraising, resulting in a $970 million market value.[9][10] Zilingo works with small and medium size enterprises in Southeast Asia.[9] As of 2019 Zilingo had over seven million active users leveraging the global platform.[4]

The China–United States trade war resulted in United States retailers leaving China, which allowed Zilingo to expand into America.[10] She has worked to source Indian fabrics for Californian factories as well as opening offices on the West Coast and East Coast.[10] At Zilingo Bose started a program to train women in Indonesia to create clothing, recognising that in Indonesia almost 40% of women leave the workforce after they get married.[10][11] Zilingo set up a coaching programme to support leaders across the company.[10]

Bose is involved with programmes to support and mentor women entrepreneurs.[8] She has spoken at the World Economic Forum.[12]