Co-Founder & CBO, Zypp Electric
This level-headed woman has a knack to pluck the exact fruit she has her eye on from the tree of life. As one who handles finances and other responsibilities at her company, this lady feels bad when she has to talk tough, but also realizes that it’s all in a day’s work. Sarada Vishnubhatla catches Rashi Agarwal, Co-Founder & CBO, Zypp Electric, on a busy day to get her to spill her success secrets.
Rashi Agarwal has known almost her entire life that discipline and perseverance are important keys to success. Hailing from the ‘cultural heart of Kumaon region of Uttarakhand’ – Almora, Rashi finished graduation as a gold medallist from SSJ college and post her MBA in Finance and Marketing, Rashi began career more than 15 years ago. Today she co-owns an EV-as-a-service company, Zypp Electric, along with her husband and partner, Akash Gupta.
Born in 1985, Rashi and her siblings knew from their childhood that they will grow up to be independent career women. Her businessman father and homemaker mother supported the girls’ ambitions unconditionally.
“As the head girl in school, leadership was ingrained in me from early on. I was a state-level table tennis player and have won awards. Though, I began my career in my 2nd year of college itself but my lifelong dream was to own a business of my own. In 2014, I started a customized fashion e-commerce platform and was successful. Achieving goals against all odds is what inspires me the most,” Rashi says.
As hardcore professionals, she and Akash began exploring ideas to build their own business and chose EV space after much research. It was in 2017 when the duo founded Zypp Electric, where Rashi takes care of fundraising, business development, operations, sales, finance, HR, compliances, legal aspects, besides procurement, and various other business interests.
Partnering a company with her spouse is a unique experience. She agrees: “The biggest advantage of spouses working together is the mutual trust and synergy. We talk about business all the time which we consider an advantage for us because we get more time to discuss things.” Another advantage of working together is sharing emotional support, Rashi feels: “Founders’ journeys are lonely. Initially, Akash and I had only each other to keep us motivated and also to fall back on. So, emotional support in such scenarios from your partner is incomparable.” Yet, she also firmly believes that emotions should not affect one’s work. And that is why Rashi channels her emotions to deliver better as a professional because for her it is more important to have high IQ instead of high EQ especially in a professional scenario. She reiterates: “At the end of the day, my work should speak for me.”
Having a 3-year-old daughter while working full-time saw Rashi bringing her to work till last year so that she could do justice to both her roles as a mother and as a business owner. She says: “My daughter goes to day care now and I believe in giving her quality time rather than spending my entire day with her but be busy with my work.”
Not one to do things to please people but do what is right, Rashi does not believe in being a ‘superwoman’. Living life honestly and executing one’s responsibilities to the best of her abilities – and all this while heading a successful start-up is what makes Rashi Agarwal a wonder woman in reality.