Sita Pallacholla, Founder and CEO, The Angel Hub, had organised the first edition of The Angel Summit in Mumbai at ISDI. The Angel Summit was previously held in Hyderabad and Delhi.
It was a day-long event on women in business which hosted 30 speakers and 400 delegates from across India. The summit connected business leaders from diverse fields to women and women-led businesses and highlighted some of the issues they face in the professional world. For example, Trisha Shetty (Founder and CEO, SheSays) spoke at length about the sexual harassment that women face.
The theme of the Mumbai edition was "Bridge the Gap", which aimed at closing the gap between the genders in the corporate world. This was closely linked to the conference's goal of starting a conversation about gender equality where men are allies, not obstacles to women's empowerment. Many of the speakers, for instance, included men like Ambi Parameswaran (Founder, Brand-Building.com), Jay Krishnan (CEO, T-Hub), Harjeet Khanduja (Vice President HR, Reliance JioInfocom), Harish Sadani (Co-founder, MAVA) and Rahul Narvekar, Founder and CEO, The India Network and Scale Ventures Fund.
Sita Pallacholla, Founder of The Angel Hub said, "Equal opportunity only happens with equal dialogue hence I created a platform where dialogues happen between men and women both".
The strong male presence at the summit was one of its strengths while the ladies present made delivered some power-packed, relevant speeches. Paromita Vohra (Filmmaker and Founder, Agents of Ishq) outlined the challenges of modern romance while Ameera Shah (Managing Director, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd.) shared her success story with the audience. The Leaders Without Borders panel highlighted how women can level the playing field for men and women both, the Million Dollar Dream panel focused on the challenges of building a successful company and the World of Equals panel discussed how women can effectively bridge the gap.
Helping businesses helmed by women was one of the primary goals of the event. Therefore, a session was held where 10 women-led businesses pitched for funding which was very successful.
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"It's like the event [helped] to build a sort of a sisterhood," said founder and CEO of the childcare-centric start-up, BabyChakra, Naiyya Saggi.
The Angel Summit always aims to connect business leaders from diverse fields to women and women-led businesses while highlighting some of the issues they face professionally. It also provides women with access to industry specific mentors and funding.