Although we celebrate women leaders all year round, during #SGWomen Month we give special kudos to the amazing, incredible, intelligent (we could go on and on!) women who make the tech, investor, and startup landscapes what they are today.

#SGWomen Month launched six years ago and is about putting a heightened focus and an awareness on our everyday mission to create more inclusive communities. Never has Startup Grind’s mission been more potent than in the realm of entrepreneurship, startups, business, and to represent women everywhere.

This year we wish to host a unique experience, themed around “Women in Impact” and “Women Leaders” for which we reached out to stakeholders to partner within the ecosystem, aligned to the same values and vision.

We would like to thank our partners Headstart Network Foundation, Helm of 8 Impact Ventures, Catalysing Women Entrepreneurship, Her Ace Venture Evangelist (H.A.V.E), Her Entrepreneur Network India, The Talk, and to help us curate 40+ mentors, and host an incredible array of speaker sessions on 2 weekends of July 18th and July 25th, whilst running a mentorship opportunity for our communities and more.

#SGWomen2020: #SGWomen 2020: Fundraising for Women Entrepreneurs (Panel Discussion)

(Thursday) 30th of July: This is a 90 mins session presented by HAVE (Her Ace Venture Evangelist) is an investment platform which supports women led ventures through three nodes - Investment Access, Knowledge Access & Market Access.

A must attend for women founders & entrepreneurs seeking insights on fundraising with a star cast panel of Swayta Murarka, Prachi Jain and Tina Chopra. Panel Moderated by Nisha Dhanuka.

Panelist #1

Swayta Murarka is an Award winning Investment banker and Business Leader. She is known for her visionary leadership and strategic thinking, having set up and lead various businesses to success. She is a All India Rank holder Chartered Accountant, with 18 years of experience in setting up an leading teams in Investment Banking, Audit and Retail Banking across large organizations like HSBC, Goldman Sachs, PWC and ICICISwayta is currently heading the Global Banking CoE for HSBC consisting of Investment Banking, Portfolio Analytics, CRM, Client strategy, Business research, Analytics and transformation team of over 300 employees spread across Bangalore, Guangzhou and Manila. 

Swayta also has rich experience in executing strategic disposals for HSBC and M&A transactions for Financial Institutions and General Industrial clients globally. Swayta’s career story was featured by Global HSBC Production house internally and across all social media sites. Swayta has also been recognised through various industry awards, having most recently won the All India Women Achievers Award by Business Rankers publication house and the D&I Industry leader award by Community Business. 

Swayta is passionate about equal opportunity and founded the first international branch of the diversity network Balance in HSBC and was subsequently nominated as Global co-lead for the network. She helped expand this network to over 30 countries and 50,000 employees. Swayta is currently creating awareness and advocacy for disability hiring and mental health aspects of D&I as well in the corporate world.

Panelist #2

Prachi Jain is the Director of Achieving Women Entrepreneurs (‘AWE’) Funds which focusses on gender lens impact investing. She is part of senior leadership team and core investment team member of AWE Funds. She has 12+ years of experience in private equity industry and has thorough knowledge and experience of the life cycle of the Fund including but not limited to fund raising, financial modelling, due diligence, valuation, deal negotiation, post monitoring, strategy formulation for portfolio companies.She has 3 years of experience in private equity fund consulting and tax structuring. She has earlier worked with funds like YES Fund, SEAF India Agribusiness Fund, New Leaf Consumer Fund and was part of financial services team of Ambit RSM (merged with Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC). 

Prachi is passionate about creating an eco-system for women entrepreneurs and has been mentoring, coaching and advising women entrepreneur across the sectors. She was speaker at various Webinars and events organized by AWE Foundation, ZSI EmpoWer, TIE Women, Her Entrepreneurial Network (HEN), Climate Ready, IWIL India etc. She is also mentor for Fashion for Good – Circular Innovation Apparel Factory startup companies and Climate Collective – Climate Ready. 

She defines herself as an “Entrepreneur Professional” as she has been part of various organization at formative stage and understands the challenges and pain points for running an organization. Prachi is a Chartered Accountant (AIR in PE-I and PE-II), Company Secretary and holds a Law degree from Mumbai University.

Panelist #3

Tina Chopra After working for nearly 12 years as a journalist, she succumbed to the allure of entrepreneurship. She had enjoyed her stints at world-class news organisations like TheTimes of India, Forbes Asia Magazine, and the BBC and as the Editor of Wealth magazine. But, it was time to put her MSc from the London School of Economics to the real-world test. She founded her Content Marketing Agency Script six years ago. They are proud of their work for A*STAR, Citibank, OCBC Bank, Unilever Food Solutions, KPMG Digital, many others. They have recently completed Sustainability Report Writing forMaritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

She is also one of the Mentors for the HBSCS Mentorship Programme, which is jointly run by the alumni of Harvard Business School and LSE. She has two left feet and a knapsack strapped to her back. She is in the process of getting a Certification in Business Sustainability Management from University of Cambridge in order to advise on UNDP Sustainability Principles for Impact Investing.

Moderator 

This Panel is moderated by Nisha Dhanuka co-founder of Her Ace Venture Evangelist (H.A.V.E.) an investment platform which supports women led ventures through three nodes - Investment Access, Knowledge Access & Market Access. 

Nisha is an Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the professional training & coaching industry. Skilled in Business Planning, Risk Management, Corporate Finance, Banking, and Coaching. Strong entrepreneurship professional with a MBA focused in Finance, CA & CS. Strong business acumen to grow her business from scratch to millions. Passionate about building strong financial acumen in entrepreneurs especially women entrepreneurs.

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If you are a women founder, looking for mentorship, or an experienced person who can mentor deserving and aspiring women founders, applications open till July 31st -

MENTEES Enrolment form - https://forms.gle/RxRgDKrvnGdfXQRR7

MENTORS On-boarding form- https://forms.gle/XPUr3CThLuBxkJh38