Saloni Malhotra

Saloni Malhotra is the founder and CEO of DesiCrew, an IT-enabled service company that provides back-office and support services in rural areas of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, India. She has worked to establish Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies in rural parts of the states and employ previously inexperienced and untrained people from small villages.

Career
Saloni did her engineering from University of Pune in state of Maharashtra. She started her career in an interactive media startup, Web Chutney based in Delhi. She came into contact of Professor Jhunjhunwala of TeNet group, IIT Madras and came up with this idea. It's not very different except of course, the 'rural' perspective. It's like any other BPO that functions with people in rural areas. We work with IT/ITES companies, insurance, new media and mobile-based clients. When we looked around, we saw that a lot of BPOs hire people from rural areas and realised that people have to migrate to work here. So, we decided to take the jobs to them.

Her company DesiCrew been recognized for this innovative approach. DesiCrew has rural delivery centers in the Indian southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat, and employs 900-odd people from these villages. She currently is on the Board of Directors of DesiCrew.

Awards

 * Nominated : MTV Youth Icon 2008
 * Facilitated in the presence of the President of India by the CII.