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Shreya Prakash
Co-founder & CEO, FlexiBees | Want to make work flexible and accessible to all | Interested in #talent #futureofwork #growth
Shreya Prakash is the co-founder and CEO of FlexiBees, a talent platform that provides businesses with flexible and remote workforce solutions.12 She leads the business development and marketing functions, helping companies understand and unlock the potential of a flexible workforce.4
Background and Experience
Shreya has a strong background in business and technology:
- She holds a PGDM in Marketing from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (2006-2008).1
- Prior to founding FlexiBees, she worked at Unilever for nearly a decade, holding positions such as Senior Global Brand Manager and Area Sales Manager.1
FlexiBees
Shreya co-founded FlexiBees in 2016 with the vision of normalizing flexibility in work.25 The company:
- Connects businesses with vetted part-time, project-based, and remote-working talent, primarily focusing on qualified women professionals returning to the workforce.2
- Has provided talent to over 800 companies globally and given jobs to more than 2,000 women from Indian metro and Tier II-III cities.6
- Became profitable in its first year of operations and hit a key revenue milestone of INR 1 Cr in March 2019.2
Achievements and Impact
Under Shreya's leadership, FlexiBees has made significant strides:
- The company has impacted over 20,000 women by grooming them for interviews and preparing them to return to the workforce.6
- A third-party survey showed that women placed by FlexiBees in remote and part-time jobs saw an average increase of 22% in their household income.6
- FlexiBees recently raised pre-Series A funding and aims to become a $200 million+ topline business in five years, impacting five million women professionals.6
Shreya Prakash is recognized as one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in India, according to YourStory.3
Highlights
As parent to a budding chess-enthusiast, I end up picking bits of the game and pieces of information that are interesting to me as well.
♟ Did you know that ‘checkmate’ is a distortion of ‘shah-mat’ which roughly translates to ‘the king is defeated’ in Persian, a region the game traveled to in its infancy from India, where it was born.
♟ Did you know that 84 of 1800+ Chess Grandmasters are from India, the fifth-highest country tally in the world?
♟ But one historical anecdote that I was unprepared for, is the origin of the Queen.
Most of us know that the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board. Capable of traveling in any direction and any number of steps, it is also the piece the humble pawn can metamorphose into at the end of its long trek across the board.
But was it always this way? Apparently not.
With its origin in the Indian game ‘Chaturanga’ in the 6th century, the King at the time was supported by his ‘counselor’, who didn’t have very many moves to begin with. No Queens were visible on the chequered battlefield for as far as the eye could see.
It remained this way for the next millennia – with the counselor perhaps morphing into the Queen over time, but the Queen nevertheless remaining one of the weaker pieces - till the game started finding its way into Europe. Europe at the time was seeing an unprecedented rise in the number of female monarchs, rulers like Elizabeth I, Catherine of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Historians attribute this powerful reshaping to several factors, the rise of prominent queens, as well as the religious cult of the Virgin Mary, in addition to the medieval popularity of the game as one where women could play on equal terms with men.
Today we don’t know the game in any other way, and while the King remains the most important piece, the Queen glides across the chessboard as second to none, inspiring awe and fear in equal parts.
And why do I recount this story here? Because to me this is a story of feminism and of representation :)
It is a tiny reminder of the fact that we must continue to make ourselves seen and heard, and that we can, quite literally, change the rules of the game.
#chess #womenworking
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Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
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