On February 22-23, the fifth edition of the ET Global Business Summit was hosted at Taj Palace in New Delhi. Every year, the ETGBS (a Times Group initiative) brings together entrepreneurs, heads of state, academicians and policy makers to open a dialogue about inclusive economic growth. For this year’s summit, the theme was Social, Sustainable, Scalable. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Guest at the event, while it also saw many illustrious names on the panel including celebrated author and tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki, Alibaba CMO Chris Tung, Minister of Law & Justice of India Ravi Shankar Prasad, Blackstone Group President Jonathan Gray, Capgemini CEO Paul Hermelin, S4 Capital Chairman Martin Sorrell, Deloitte CEO Punit Renjen Global and Tesla Co-founder Martin Eberhard.
However, what truly made this year’s event special for us was the presence of POPxo’s Founder and CEO, Priyanka Gill at the Focussed Panel Discussion titled ‘Create, Nurture and Transform – The Better Half’. Along with Priyanka, the other speakers included influential women such as Textile Minister Smriti Z Irani, Editor Faye D’souza, and entrepreneur Ananya Birla. The discussion was about women at the workplace, pay parity between the genders, shared leadership, and having women on boards. The question, ‘Are women better entrepreneurs than men?’ was also discussed by the speakers.
Women Matter
At a session titled ‘DisrupteX – Challenging The Status Quo’ Priyanka started her talk by explaining why POPxo does what it does. Her answer was simple, “Because women matter.” She emphasised that from an economic point of view, not talking to women meant ignoring half of the market because women constitute at least 45% of the population.
POPxo recently celebrated its fifth anniversary and the company reflected on how far it has come– from one million active users in 2014 to 39 million users in 2019. She added that back in 2014, there was no digital content targeted to women in India. It was a white space where no one was talking about things in a context relevant to Indian women. This led to the birth of POPxo, a content platform for millennial woman.
POPxo’s new campaign #TakeItUpAPop celebrates the brand’s promise to help women achieve their goals and lead better lives on their own terms. No matter how big the company grows, this is the single thought that pushes people at POPxo to do better.
POPxo’s Expansion In The Last Five Years
Priyanka explained how POPxo has scaled up its audience in these five years, “It’s about creating engaging content, it’s about creating relatable content, it’s about creating content that does not talk down to the user. Our philosophy is that it doesn’t matter who you are, what you are, what you do, or what you look like. We want you to be the best version of yourself that you want to be.” She also added, “We create content about everything that matters to women. It could be fashion, beauty, work, or relationships.”
The next step for the brand was to reach women outside of the English speaking audience. POPxo is now available in six languages. Quoting data from POPxo, she mentioned, “Our Hindi audience is bigger than our English audience. In the next six months, our Tamil, Telugu, Bangla audience is going to be equal to our English audience and bigger. This is telling us one thing – that we are at a cusp of a very, very important change. Digital audiences are exploding.”
POPxo entered the private label space when it launched POPxo Shop, talking about this venture, Priyanka said this was a way to offer Indian millennial women products that expressed their personality.
Ending the talk on a high note, Priyanka said that whatever she was doing wasn’t just because she was a feminist, it was because women were a ‘large powerhouse waiting to be harnessed’ and she wanted to create a platform that does just that.
You can watch the complete video below.
POPxo is now available in six languages: English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Bangla.
AWESOME NEWS! POPxo SHOP is now Open! Get 25% off on all the super fun mugs, phone covers, cushions, laptop sleeves, and more! Use coupon code POPXOFIRST. Online shopping for women never looked better!
