Women in Tech: Meet Sanchita Saha, Founder and CEO of Shello

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we’re hosting an exciting Women In Tech event in collaboration with Triangirls, a supportive female collective that is on a mission to empower women in both their personal and professional lives.

Meet Sanchita Saha, CEO and founder of Shello. She will be joining us on stage at the event as part of a panel discussion about inclusion and diversity in the tech industry. Shello is a recently released app with the simple goal of helping women source independent and impartial knowledge and advice on any topic relevant to their lives and to create a safe space to explore their ideas, opinions and interests.

Sanchita is the CEO of 3 start ups and has built communities and technology from a zero base and raising venture funding. Prior to this, she had a career with the BBC which spread across finance, operations, production and marketing within the 7 years she was there.

Diversity and inclusion within the tech world

When discussing the importance of diversity and inclusion within the tech industry, Sanchita described how “Tech is moving at the most rapid pace in history and, without diversity to bring different thoughts, opinions and experiences to the table, then we risk designing just for white males and leaving large sections of society behind.”

It is widely proven that diverse perspectives lead to innovation. In a report conducted by CISCO, they shared how when businesses are willing to embrace new ideas, throw out traditional approaches and ‘norms’, they are 46% more likely to meet product revenue targets more often and will also meet product launch dates 47% more often than their industry peers.

Businesses need to take action

Sanchita’s personal experience with inclusion within the workplace is mixed, with the right intentions there but no real actions being taken. She recalls how “They spoke a lot about inclusion but when you looked at the executive team, there it was, all white males”. With this in mind, she was determined to ensure her own businesses didn’t have this issue, explaining how at her own company she has “the same ratio of women to men, 50% of the team are non-British and 25% are Indian/Asian origin so we have a very diverse team.”

There are many small and much larger steps that businesses can take in order to create more inclusive and diverse teams. Sanchita believes that “By encouraging and investing in mentorship and supporting them in achieving their career goals”, businesses will begin to attract and retain great talent.

Inspirations

We were keen to know who Sanchita admired within the industry; who she has looked up to and who has inspired her to continue her dream of working in the tech world, to which she listed a few amazing women.

• Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code

• Amanda Steinberg, Founder of Dailyworth.com

• Sophia Amaruso, Founder and CEO of Girlboss community

What can we do?

We’re on a mission to help change the issues raised and our Women In Tech event is a step in the right direction. During this event, we will share more about being an empowered woman in tech, more details surrounding diversity and inclusion and where you can find support as a woman in tech. Interested in joining us? Check out the event details and how we plan to continue working towards #ClosingTheGap.

Meet the rest of our panel

Joining Sanchita on the panel, we have:

Charlotte Jee, Staff Writer for MIT Technology Review

Niamh Power, Mobile Engineer at Monzo

Alisha Dattani, Founder and CEO of FMXA

Rachael Grocott, Product Designer at Geckoboard and co-founder of Triangirls