Entrepreneurial Journeys

Ten Inspirational Female Tech Entrepreneurs From SEA

Despite the recent strides we have seen in gender equality, there is still a lack of women in prominent roles in the technology sector. According to a 2016 “Future of Jobs” report from the World Economic Forum, women only make up 5% of CEOs and 19% of board members in the Information and Communication Sector.

In developing Asian nations like Indonesia and Malaysia, I believe that female Asian entrepreneurs have an edge simply because it is a tougher region to change regarding perceptions and roles of women in society.

To make a change in these attitudes, it is important for women entrepreneurs to be loud, to be noticed and to share their stories of success and failures. Here are just a few of my favorite female lead success stories coming out of Southeast Asia that are not only disrupting the tech industry but serve as an inspiration to female tech entrepreneurs like myself and those yet to come.

1. Fransiska Hadiwidjana

Armed with a strong IT background, several coding challenge titles and an honors degree from the Institute of Technology Bandung, Fransiska is poised to disrupt the tech industry with her innovative ideas.

She is currently CEO of her own tech startup called Prelo, a mobile-first e-commerce marketplace for Indonesia that is based on using environmentally friendly technology and community empowerment.

2. Veronika Linardi

Veronika is the women behind popular Indonesian job search and review site Qerja. It is Indonesia’s first online community for professionals that enables them to find transparent information about a company’s pay scale and hiring practices.

However, this is not Veronika’s first foray into the business world. In 2006, she established her own executive recruitment agency that quickly became the leading portal in the industry within two years of operation.

3. Hooi Ling Tan

Hooi Ling Tan, a former McKinsey consultant and Harvard graduate, is the co-founder of Malaysia-based app GrabTaxi. Despite aggressive competition from Uber and Easy Taxi, Hooi and her team have successfully gained traction in the region.

Grab is now available in 21 cities, received a quarter of a billion in funding from Softbank and has entered six markets across Asia in three years. A far cry from its days soliciting business door-to-door in Kuala Lumpur.

4. Reese Fernandez-Ruiz

In 2007, Reese created founded a start-up in the Philippines called Rags2Riches. Since then, her team have been helping women in poor communities to make a living from creating eco-ethical fashion and home accessories.

Reese has been recognized for her work by topping Forbes prestigious 30 under 30 list for Social Entrepreneurs and has trained over 900 women, many who reside in one the country’s biggest dump sites. She is also the youngest recipient in the history of The Outstanding Women in the National’s Service Award.

5. Stephanie Yoe

Stephanie is more than her Miss Universe Jakarta title. She is a third culture kid that got her first taste of running a company by taking on roles in her family’s coconut business.

Since then has been mentored by Monk’s Hill Ventures Peng T. Ong, was named a global ambassador for Babson College for Indonesia and has entered the tech startup scene with her property service CutBroker.

6. Huang Shao Ning

For some entrepreneurs, we dream of building up our start-up to such a pinnacle that we can eventually carry out a successful exit before starting on the next big idea.

Huang achieved just this with her job search startup JobsCentral. In 2011, it was one of the largest portals in Singapore with 800,000 registered job seekers when the company was acquired by US-based CareerBuilder.

7. Alexis Horowitz-Burdick

Starting a business can be unpredictable and full of risks. No one knows this better than Alexis, founder of the online cosmetics store Luxola. Founded in 2011, there were times when she could not pay herself or her team, and there was no predictability in its success at the time.

Fortunately, she and her team persevered, and in 2014, Luxola raised millions of dollars to fuel its expansion into Southeast Asia. Today, her startup has operations in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand with shipping to Hong Kong, UAE, Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Australia.

In 2015, her company was acquired by Sephora, and she is now the Managing Director at Sephora Digital SEA.

8. Sarah Huang

With ten years of experience in e-commerce, Huang found WhatsNew, Thailand’s e-commerce conglomerate. Her startup grew from a small business with a revenue of a few thousand dollars to one that rakes in US $2 million annually.

While WhatsNew aims to continue to building the female economy, Huang has moved on to focus on being a mother and be the principal consultant for Buzzebees.

9. Esther Nguyen

The road to entrepreneurship is never a smooth one. Behind every successful venture are all the ideas that never worked out.

Esther Nguyen, who is the founder of Pops Worldwide a leading digital media company in Vietnam, experienced many setbacks before she achieved success with her current startup. After two of her companies folded and selling her shares in another, Esther set her eyes on Vietnam’s music industry.

Since 2008, her company has been accumulating the licensing and distribution rights for 90% of the country’s music and is now the primary licensee of Vietnamese music on YouTube.

10. Roshni Mahtani

Roshni is the founder and CEO of a startup called Tickled Media, a content and community platform for parents in Asia. Her company reaches over 6 million mothers every month and has operations in several countries across Asia including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Before Tickled Media, Roshni founded the Female Founders Network and grew it to over 700 founders. She also sits on the board of TIE Singapore and is a mentor at JFDI and the Crib.

Which Southeast Asian female entrepreneurs inspire you?

 


Read More

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button