The advisory group has been established to inform the strategy and implementation of Sabi’s vision as the company continues its growth trajectory. The group consists of Vidit Aatrey, Founder & CEO of Meesho, Ian Black, Managing Director of Shopify, Sapna Goyal, Corporate Development Director of Udaan, and Bame Pule, Founder of Africa Lighthouse Capital.
Vidit Aatrey, one of the leading Indian entrepreneurs of his generation, is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Meesho. Vidit, an alumnus of IIT-Delhi embarked on the journey of creating Meesho back in 2015, together with his college batchmate and friend Sanjeev Barnwal, with an aim to build an ecommerce start-up for small businesses at a time when everyone told them that ecommerce is saturated. Seven years later, they have today built India’s largest social commerce platform at Meesho. Meesho has already empowered 2 million+ entrepreneurs, mostly women, and is on its way to create more. Through its platform, it enables entrepreneurs to start an online-business with zero investment and provides them with the resources, tools, logistics and payment capabilities to run their business. Prior to Meesho, Vidit worked with ITC and Inmobi.
Ian Black is the Managing Director of Shopify Canada. Prior to that, he was the Director of Retail at Shopify. In that role, Ian managed the business and go-to-market strategy for Shopify Retail in Toronto, by overseeing sales, solutions, partnerships, and operations, working alongside marketing and R&D leadership. Prior to joining Shopify, Ian was head of UberEATS’ American and Canadian divisions. He was also a management consultant with Bain & Company in Toronto and New York where he advised companies and private equity funds on strategy and growth.
Sapna Goyal is the Corporate Development Director (strategic investments, partnerships, and M&A) at Udaan, a leading B2B e-commerce platform in India. For over ten years, she has investing experience in early and growth-stage internet start-ups in India. Prior to Udaan, Sapna worked with Goldman Sachs Investment Partners VC & Growth Equity Fund and was responsible for investments in the Indian internet space. She also has investing experience in Indian Public Markets as part of a hedge fund at Goldman Sachs. She is passionate about the power of digital transformation on the Indian economy and how it is a great leveller. She is an active angel investor.
Bame Pule is the founder of Africa Lighthouse Capital, an independent private equity firm founded in 2012 to invest in and nurture businesses into African champions. The firm has a particular focus on helping investee companies adopt global best practices regardless of sector, attain benchmarks equivalent to those of global peers, and expand into multiple key African markets. Prior to founding Africa Lighthouse Capital, Mr. Pule worked at Actis Capital, ShoreView Capital, Goldman Sachs & Credit Suisse in New York and Salomon Brothers/Citigroup in Los Angeles.
Commenting on the appointments, Anu Adasolum, Co-Founder & CEO of Sabi: said “Our goal has always been to build and establish a robust team of experts – from our leadership team right down to our agent network – that lives and breathes our core values and mission to transform the B2B commerce industry in Africa. We’re extremely pleased to announce that the four members are talented and strategic business leaders whose broad experience will further strengthen our commitment to enable financial inclusion within the B2B community in Africa’s growing informal economy, while providing world class solutions for our merchants. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive forward the next phase of growth.”
About Sabi:
Sabi is Africa’s leading provider of commerce infrastructure for the distribution of goods and services. Its platform enables and empowers the most underserved merchants in the world, allowing agents, merchants, aggregators, distributors, and manufacturers to expand their capabilities and grow their businesses using Sabi’s technology rails. These rails provide access to supply, logistics, business tools, data insights and financial services.
Africa’s informal trade sector, worth over $800 billion, has more than 56 million micro, small and medium sized businesses. Most of these businesses operate offline with little or no exposure to the formalized, digital economy, a problem Sabi is solving.
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