Product-led Innovation

Name: Rujul Gupta

Designation: Head of Product

Company: Basis

Age: 27

After graduating from the University of California (UCLA) in 2017, Rujul Gupta did not have a firm finger on what she wanted to do. But this saw her dabble in several areas including entrepreneurship, consulting, marketing and advertising, strategy, sales and business analysis. This gave Gupta a bird’s-eye view of business environments from all angles possible. Today, she is the Head of Product at Basis, a VC-backed early-stage startup that is looking to enable the financial inclusion of women in India.

Gupta’s interest in financial inclusion came to life when she was working at Deloitte, where it became evident to her that majority of women had a broken relationship with their finances. She observed this problem to be pertinent amongst women in her family and peers as well. This got her to the realisation that even though more women have now become financially independent, few among them have access to credit.

In mission mode

“The magnitude of the problem was very clear to me. It set forth my mission to transform access to financial products and enable financial inclusion through curated UX and access centre products,” says Gupta. Soon after, Gupta volunteered for Mann Deshi Foundation (India’s first rural bank for women) as a consultant. Here, she did a project on micro-credit and drove D2C transformation for frontier markets which improved access to a better life for rural India through women entrepreneurs. This stint helped her understand the product and strategy side of things.

Having gained some experience, Gupta started her entrepreneurial venture laana.club, a learning-first community curated for millennial and gen-z women to make investing simple, step-by-step and fun. She introduced conversational AI to laana.club and helped hundreds of women begin their journey in investing. At this point, Gupta began talks with Basis founders and decided to work on the problem at scale.

Today, Gupta leads the effort of the product team at Basis. In her role, she guides a team of designers, product managers and spearheads community-led financial products that are focused on improving access to credit for millions of women across the country. She is helping Basis tap into a $40 billion opportunity of building financial services specifically curated for women in India through her efforts.