Women Leaders Unite to Celebrate International Women's Day at ASCENT Foundation's First Women BizMakers Event

MUMBAI, March 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Founded by Harsh Mariwala, ASCENT Foundation is a peer-to-peer platform that enables high-potential growth-ready entrepreneurs and to grow their enterprise and enrich their entrepreneur journey 

ASCENT Foundation, a not-for-profit, peer-to-peer learning platform for entrepreneurs founded by Harsh Mariwala, Chairman, Marico Ltd., hosted its first edition of ASCENT Women BizMakers conference, on Thursday, 08 March 2018 at St. Regis, Mumbai. The half day conference witnessed some of India's most inspiring and recognised women leaders share their entrepreneurial journey over the years, learnings and success stories.

Leveraging the 'power of the collective' ASCENT identifies high-potential growth-ready entrepreneurs and enable them to grow their enterprise. ASCENT Foundation aims to be a building block that enables women leaders to scale to the next level of business and developmental growth through peer-to-peer learning.

The ASCENT Women BizMakers event started with a key note speech by Ameera Shah, Managing Director, Metropolis Healthcare Limited on her journey as an entrepreneur with key lessons learnt over the years. This was then followed by Anjali Bansal's speech, a former global Partner and MD with TPG Private Equity and a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York and Mumbai which delved on how entrepreneurs can 'Step-Up and Scale-Up'. Lastly, the event had a panel discussion on the topic of 'Hustling Your Way to Success' that was moderated by Swati Khandelwal, Chief of Bureau, BTVi. The panel discussion saw a confluence of views shared on different leadership styles and techniques towards entrepreneurial growth by Chetna Gala Sinha, Founder-Chairperson, Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation, Preeta Sukhtankar, Founder, The Label Life and Neha Motwani, Founder, Fitternity.

The ASCENT Women BizMakers Conference brought about several interesting discussions on the evolving role of women entrepreneurs leaving audiences enthralled with insights on topics such as:

• Importance of mentors and peer-to-peer learning platforms such as Empoweress and ASCENT Foundation;
• Scaling-Up;
• Different leadership styles and
• Work-life blend

"Women in leadership positions have shown to have a positive impact on the growth of a company, which in turn has caused a ripple effect on the development of an economy. There has been a significant shift in the role of a woman in the board room, which exemplifies how women entrepreneurship has positively evolved over the years. Although we are seeing a spike in the number of women leaders, we still need many more women entrepreneurs at the helm of their businesses. In this endeavour, ASCENT Foundation is committed to building a strong network of like-minded women entrepreneurs who are ready to scale to the next level of business and personal growth. I hope to see a lot more women entrepreneurs take lead and shine as business leaders," said Harsh Mariwala, Founder, ASCENT Foundation and Chairman, Marico Ltd.

"Men and women today stand shoulder-to-shoulder and are driving our country towards boundless growth. It is heartening to see how women are excelling in such diverse sectors and spheres. This being said, women still need to be further encouraged for them to be believe that nothing is beyond their reach. This is where ASCENT Foundation and Empoweress play a catalytic role. With ASCENT Foundation's Women BizMaker's event today, we are taking one such step. Congratulations to ASCENT for this initiative and bringing us all together," said Ameera Shah, MD, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd.

About ASCENT: 

ASCENT is a not-for-profit expression of Harsh Mariwala (Chairman, Marico Ltd. and Founder, ASCENT Foundation) and his passion to identify high-potential growth-ready entrepreneurs and enable them to grow their enterprise. Launched in 2012 and active across Mumbai, ASCENT is designed as a unique, powerful peer-to-peer platform that leverages the 'power of collective' through self-facilitated Trust Groups and enables entrepreneurs to share and exchange experiences, ideas, insights and create a healthy ecosystem to learn from each other. Additionally, ASCENT provides peripheral access to relevant growth enablers like service providers, investors and banks, industry role models and domain experts.

For more details please visit: http://www.ascentfoundation.in/

Media Contact:
Shivani Divecha
[email protected]
+91-9821879331
Manager
ASCENT Foundation

Bhakti Dalal
Independent Communications Consultant
+91-9819118807