A tête-à-tête with Sonal Goyal

As International Women's Day draws near, the spotlight shines on the extraordinary achievements of women across all fields. At Pravega Ventures , we are celebrating our portfolio founders and for this interview, we caught hold of Sonal Goyal , co-founder, and CEO of Zingg.AI .

Zingg helps data teams in?the banking, financial services and insurance industry who struggle with lack of a unified view of customers for cross selling, upselling, compliance, and risk. It builds the?single source of truth for customers by?resolving records from different systems using advance AI.

In the technology space that is often dominated by male figures, Sonal is a beacon of inspiration. Here, she shared her insights on navigating the tech industry as a woman. From her surprise at the lack of female representation to her hopes for the future, Goyal's journey offers valuable perspectives and inspiration.

Pravega Ventures: Sonal, thank you for your time! You have been an entrepreneur for over a decade. What about your journey has surprised you the most as a female founder?

Sonal Goyal: As a founder, I interact with to a lot of people in different roles - engineers, sales and marketing professionals, VCs etc. The most surprising aspect for me in all these interactions has been the lack of women in almost all the roles, in India as well as internationally. Female representation in most senior roles is miniscule.?

PV: Technology, specifically the data science & programming field has traditionally been male-dominated. How is it different from when you went to college to now? Do you see any change?

SG: Well, I was always the gender minority, right from the time I chose mathematics and science after 10th?grade to engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and then within the professional environment. I was in an all-girls school till Class 10, so initially I was very hesitant about the change. But I made some great friends over time and became comfortable as I was immersed in my work and became more confident of myself and my skills.?

As for the change you mentioned, I do see more women joining engineering streams compared to when I graduated from college. Even companies these days focus a lot more on diversity and inclusion which is great! Data Science and Programming are fascinating subjects and I would love to see more people, irrespective of their gender, enjoy the fulfilling work that it offers.?

PV: As a female founder of an open-source, deep tech product, how do you think your opinion affects the external environment?like your peers, colleagues, advisors??

SG: I identify myself more as a human being than a gender specific hue. Gender is one aspect of a person's personality, but there are many things that shape a person and a professional, like your family, upbringing, location, interests etc. It is hard for me to say how being a "female" founder affects my surroundings. But as someone who has spent 25 years in the arena and finds building and selling things fascinating, I really hope to be a role model for people who love programming and want to make a strong global business out of it.?

PV: Zingg.AI is your professional pursuit, what does personal fulfilment look like for you?

SG: Zingg for me, is both personal and professional. It is a point of view on how AI can be applied to data management and how to build systems that scale, learn, and perform directly on user data. Beyond usual applications of Zingg identity graph in financial services and retail, we are seeing Zingg applications in sports, non-profits, healthcare, corporate social responsibility, anti-money laundering, pandemic response, sustainability and other causes as well. Hence, there is no boundary for me there.?

PV: Sonal, you can have one superpower for a day. What would it be and how would it affect your work at Zingg?

SG: As an open-source product, we have limited visibility into our users and how they use Zingg.?If I could get a super-lens to see how Zingg is being used at every single place that it is getting deployed at, it would help us enormously to build the right set of features.?

PV: If it were up to you, how would you foster a better ecosystem for female founders?

SG: I would like to encourage more women who have the privilege of good education, alumni networks, and financial stability to get more ambitious and build global scale companies. If we do not do it, who will??

PV: Women-led businesses, what is the future in India?

SG: Why stop at India, the world is our oyster!?

Beyond the laptop screen, boardrooms and technical intricacies, Sonal’s world is infused with personal passions.