I became the youngest female CEO to run a company valued at over a billion dollars in Asia. And then I became one of the youngest to lose it all. Both titles are equally mine.
Sequoia backed us. Temasek backed us. Every name-brand investor in Asia wrote us a check. When that much money comes in that fast, it can make you believe you are infallible. You are not.
I went to a street market in Bangkok and realized every small vendor there had amazing products but no way to sell them online. That was the spark for Zilingo.
We raised $300 million to build the fashion supply chain for Southeast Asia. The vision was right. The execution — well, clearly something went very wrong.
The fashion supply chain in Asia is a $500 billion market run on WhatsApp messages and handshake deals. We wanted to digitize that entire chain — from factory to customer.
They fired me over alleged financial irregularities. I deny every accusation. But the company is dead now and the truth is somewhere in between what anyone is saying publicly.