Ankiti Bose

Ankiti Bose (born 1992) is an Indian entrepreneur who works on the digitisation of the textile and apparel industry. She is the co-founder and CEO of Zilingo. She has been featured in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list in 2018 as well as in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 along with Bloomberg 50 in 2019.

Recently, Ankiti announced Zilingo’s effort to combat COVID19 crisis by helping deliver stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, protective suits and gloves to hospitals world over to aid frontline healthcare workers.

Early life and education

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

Career

Bose started her career working at McKinsey & Company and Sequoia Capital in Bangalore. Whilst at Chatuchak Weekend Market Bose noticed that fashion markets in Southeast Asia had considerable room for growth. The Chatuchak Weekend Market has over 11,000 independent merchants, but nothing was available to buy online. Whilst there was investment in improving access to the internet, Bose recognised that retailers were not trained in financing, scaling-up, website design and procurement.

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

The China–United States trade war resulted in United States retailers leaving China, which allowed Zilingo to expand into America. She has worked to source Indian fabrics for Californian factories as well as opening offices on the West Coast and East Coast. 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. Zilingo set up a coaching programme to support leaders across the company.

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

Awards and honours

Her awards and honours include:

• 2018 Forbes magazine's 30 under 30
• 2019 Fortune magazine's 40 Under 40
• 2019 The Bloomberg 50
• 2019 Business Worldwide Magazine Most Innovative CEO of the Year – Singapore