This Is The Story Of Monica Malhotra

Today morning, I had the chance to catch up with Monica on Zoom. She likes to call herself a ‘Dubai kid” having grown up and done her schooling in this city, we all love to call home.

After completing her high school in Dubai, Monica went to the US for higher studies and graduated from Stern School of Business (NYU) in Finance and Digital Economy.  She worked there with the likes of Goldman Sachs and after a brief stint in the US, she returned to Dubai.

Upon return, Monica started her entrepreneurial journey by bringing the New York-based edutainment franchise, Kidville, to Dubai in 2010. Two years later, she transformed the Kidville edutainment playbook into a comprehensive education-based nursery curriculum and finally exited the business to pursue other interests.

Last year in January 2020, Monica launched an online platform – Gaggler. I asked Monica how she stumbled on the name, Gaggler. The inspiration came from the phrase, ‘Gaggle of Geese’.

Gaggler is a women empowerment online community of like-minded women. The objective is to educate, inspire and showcase women of substance. It is also to provide the tools and support system required by aspiring women entrepreneurs to find a resource centre that can help them achieve their dreams.

Social media has helped Monica make the conversations interactive. Her newly formed Facebook group is getting a good response from people who want to contribute content and engage with this audience that comprises of women drawn from different cultures and backgrounds. Each one has an interesting story to share.

Going forward, Monica plans to add an e-commerce functionality to her platform to provide women access to beauty, style, wellness, and sustainability related ‘feel good kits’. She is also looking to collaborate with brands that share her passions and the willingness to give back to society.

Within a short span of slightly over a year, Gaggler has caught the imagination of over 40,000 women who are part of her online community.

A bigger and brighter, Gaggler 2.0 is round the corner. Stay tuned.

Penned by Sharad Agarwal