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Standard Chartered and Dun & Bradstreet launch Women Entrepreneurship Optimism Index

MUMBAI, India, March 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Standard Chartered Bank and Dun & Bradstreet, a global leader in business decisioning data and analytics, today released the first-ever edition of Women Entrepreneurship Optimism Index (WEOI). The composite Women Entrepreneurship Optimism Index for Q4 2024 stood at 68.93 (up by 97 basis points from 67.90 in Q3 2024), indicating that women entrepreneurs had anticipated improved prospects in the last quarter of 2024.

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The WEOI has been launched as part of the SC WIN – the Women’s International Network programme of Standard Chartered Bank that supports women-led businesses with funding, cash management, dedicated managers, and a community for supporting them in their growth journey.

This first-of-its-kind index is based on a survey of more than 200 women entrepreneurs across a wide range of industries and cities, and presents effective insights into the outlook, opportunities and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. It focusses on five key dimensions that shape women entrepreneurs’ confidence: business performance, access to finance, skill development, digital adoption, and support of government policies along with personal and professional networks.

Some of the key findings of the survey are:

  • Thriving business confidence among women entrepreneurs can be attributed to the projected increase in domestic orders, which in turn reflects buoyant demand for their products and services in domestic markets.
  • Women entrepreneurs in Tier 1 cities were more optimistic than those in Tier 2 cities, especially regarding digital adoption and confidence in their skills.
  • Entrepreneurs in health services and those engaged in production of basic and intermediate goods exhibited lower optimism, and those in consumer goods sector seemed to be most optimistic about Q4 2024.
  • In Q4 2024, 64% of the women business owners surveyed expressed interest to digitise their business operations – including Financial Management – to modernise processes and improve efficiency.
  • With the goal of expanding customer base, they also displayed strong preference towards investing in tech tools, with 70% women entrepreneurs planning to invest more on digital tools and processes for customer acquisition in Q4 2024.
  • For growing their business, women business leaders placed topmost importance on leadership and management skills, along with an entrepreneurial mindset.
  • There is also a growing demand for government-backed skill development programs and support initiatives, with 2 in every 5 conveying optimism about the value of these resources.
  • 71% women entrepreneurs did not expect to find access to finance easy.

Launching the WEOI Q4 2024 report, Aditya Mandloi, Managing Director, Head, Wealth and Retail Banking, India and South Asia, Standard Chartered Bank, said, “Women entrepreneurs are a powerful force in India’s business landscape, yet systemic barriers continue to hinder their progress. SC WIN reflects Standard Chartered’s commitment to breaking these barriers by equipping women with the resources and opportunities they need to thrive. The Women Entrepreneurship Optimism Index further reinforces this commitment, providing data-driven insights to shape policies and initiatives that drive meaningful change.”

Avinash Gupta, Managing Director & CEO – India, Dun & Bradstreet, said, “The Women Entrepreneurship Optimism Index is an essential resource for policymakers, financial institutions, and other key players to create strategies that help women entrepreneurs thrive as it pinpoints factors that either boost or hinder growth. The Index is expected to serve as a barometer to gauge the tone and direction in which our women entrepreneurs perceive their business would grow.”

About Standard Chartered:

Standard Chartered Bank has been operating in India with a continuous presence of over 165 years making it one of the oldest foreign banks in the country. The Bank has a network of 100 branches across 42 cities. Key business segments include Corporate and Investment Banking and Wealth and Retail Banking. For more information, visit https://www.sc.com/in/

Globally, we are a leading international banking group, with a presence in 52 of the world’s most dynamic markets. Our purpose is to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, and our heritage and values are expressed in our brand promise, here for good.

Standard Chartered PLC is listed on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges.

For more stories and expert opinions, please visit Insights at sc.com. Follow Standard Chartered on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

About Dun & Bradstreet: 

Dun & Bradstreet, a leading global provider of business decisioning data and analytics, enables companies around the world to improve their business performance. Dun & Bradstreet’s Data Cloud fuels solutions and delivers insights that empower customers to accelerate revenue, lower cost, mitigate risk and transform their businesses. Since 1841, companies of every size have relied on Dun & Bradstreet to help them manage risk and reveal opportunity. For more information on Dun & Bradstreet, please visit www.dnb.com

Dun & Bradstreet Information Services India Private Limited is headquartered in Mumbai and provides clients with data-driven products and technology-driven platforms to help them take faster and more accurate decisions across finance, risk, compliance, information technology and marketing. Working towards Government of India’s vision of creating an Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) by supporting the Make in India initiative, Dun & Bradstreet India has a special focus on helping entrepreneurs enhance their visibility, increase their credibility, expand access to global markets, and identify potential customers & suppliers, while managing risk and opportunity. 

Visit www.dnb.co.in for more information. Click here for all Dun & Bradstreet India press releases. 

 

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Firstsource Partners with Typeface to Launch Agentic Marketing Services

New full-stack offering turns content operations into an agentic growth engine

NEW YORK and MUMBAI, India, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Firstsource Solutions Limited (NSE: FSL) (BSE: 532809), an RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group company, today announced the launch of a new offering — Agentic Marketing Services — in partnership with Typeface, the marketing orchestration engine for the world’s leading enterprises. The offering is designed to help enterprises move from marketing ambition to scale by transforming, implementing, and operating AI-native marketing systems. It transforms marketing operations into a scalable growth engine and delivers measurable top-line revenue growth beyond operational efficiency alone.

 

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Agentic AI is redefining how enterprises think about the customer lifecycle, and marketing content sits at the center of that transformation. Enterprises deploying AI-driven personalization are seeing up to 40% higher revenue compared to their peers. Content operations is both a growth lever and an efficiency play for CMOs: roughly 30% of CMO budgets go to content; approximately 55% of content work is manual — resizing, localization, brand compliance — while 90% of those manual workflows can be AI-enabled.

“At Firstsource, our approach has been about moving beyond traditional boundaries to build adaptive, intelligence-led ecosystems that deliver measurable outcomes. Content operations is now the most disrupted layer of the modern marketing stack, with Large Language Models reshaping the entire value chain — from ideation and production to governance and distribution — making it both the biggest near-term efficiency opportunity and the most exposed surface area in enterprise marketing,” said Ritesh Idnani, MD and Chief Executive Officer of Firstsource.

“CEOs and CMOs are not looking for a consultancy that hands off a roadmap or an agency that operates in silos — they want a partner who can transform, implement, and operate marketing systems end-to-end. By combining micro-segmentation, personalization, and deep industry context, we help clients build acquisition, engagement, and retention engines that are intelligent, compliant, and scalable. Typeface brings the AI technology to generate personalized, on-brand, compliant content at scale, and Firstsource brings deep experience in customer operations, especially in regulated industries like banking, financial services, healthcare, and retail. Together, we enable enterprises to plan, build, and run modern marketing — turning content operations into a compounding growth engine and delivering outcomes, not just effort.”

The partnership extends the capabilities announced with Typeface’s recent Marketing Orchestration Engine launch — bringing governed AI systems into full-stack marketing operations for regulated enterprises.

“AI only transforms marketing when it’s embedded into the workflows that drive real customer outcomes,” said Abhay Parasnis, Founder & CEO of Typeface. “Firstsource brings deep industry expertise and operational rigor in highly regulated environments. Together, we’re helping enterprises turn AI ambition into operational reality, embedding governed intelligence into the systems that power durable growth.” 

While Typeface provides the orchestration layer that unifies brand intelligence, AI agents, and enterprise systems, Firstsource brings the operational expertise and insights to enable effective decision making and implement and run these systems in complex, regulated environments. Together, they redesign how growth is driven — focusing on the moments, segments, and mechanisms that truly move the needle — enabling enterprises to shift from fragmented activity to scalable, revenue-led execution.

Industry view

“In retail, seasonality and micro-segmentation are where revenue is won or lost. Every peak moment demands thousands of personalized variants across marketing, service, and customer operations — and the retailers who get this right see real movement on acquisition, conversion, and retention, not just efficiency. What makes the Firstsource–Typeface offering different is that it is not another tool — it is an operating capability. Pairing agentic AI with embedded marketing operations is exactly what retailers need to move from broad campaigns to true lifecycle-driven engagement. For the industry, this is a meaningful step-change in how growth gets engineered.”

– Dave Kimbell, Ex-CEO Ulta Beauty; Firstsource Advisory Board Member

“Healthcare payers sit on a real paradox: a huge share of member communication is locked inside PHI and claims workflows where the rules are clear and rightly strict — but the biggest lever on affordability lives outside that envelope, in how payers engage members on wellness, prevention, plan literacy, and proactive disease management. That is a white-space opportunity the industry has barely touched. This is where marketing AI services can genuinely move the needle. With micro-segmentation and agentic content, payers can reach the right member with the right nudge at the right moment — entirely within compliant, non-PHI pathways — and shift the engagement model from acquisition and retention to lifelong wellness. That is how you make healthcare more affordable, improve member experience, and strengthen the economics of the plan at the same time. The Firstsource–Typeface offering is one of the few capabilities purpose-built to operate at that intersection of compliance, personalization, and outcomes.”

– Paul Sanford, Ex-EVP Operations, Cigna Group; Firstsource Advisory Board Member

About Firstsource

Firstsource Solutions Limited, an RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group company (NSE: FSL) (BSE: 532809), is a global intelligence partner to enterprises across healthcare, banking and financial services, communications, media, technology, retail, and utilities. Its inch-wide, mile-deep practitioners work collaboratively to reimagine business process management.

With operations across the US, UK, India, Philippines, Mexico, Romania, Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa, and Australia, Firstsource combines over twenty-five years of domain expertise with an agent-first delivery model to design, build, and operate intelligent enterprise operations. Through its Intelligence That Operates promise—powered by Kairos, the operating system that makes it real—the company unifies consulting, implementation, and operations into a single full-stack engagement and underwrites outcomes, not effort, turning deep domain intelligence into a compounding operational advantage for firms in the world’s most regulated industries. (www.firstsource.com)

About Typeface

Typeface is a marketing orchestration engine for the world’s leading enterprises, coordinating brand intelligence, AI agents, and enterprise systems across cross-channel marketing operations. Built for large organizations, Typeface combines shared brand intelligence, governed agent workflows, and deep enterprise integration at scale — connecting seamlessly with platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google — to help teams scale what works without sacrificing quality or control. Trusted by Fortune 500 companies, Typeface enables organizations to operationalize AI inside real marketing workflows, turning brand standards, approvals, and performance signals into coordinated systems that improve over time. Typeface is backed by Lightspeed, GV, Salesforce Ventures, Madrona, Menlo, and M12, and has been recognized by Fast Company, Gartner, TIME, LinkedIn, and Adweek as a leader in AI for marketing. Learn more at www.typeface.ai.

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Shaping Future-Ready School Leaders: Woxsen University Leads Design Thinking Initiative for Principals

HYDERABAD, India, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The School of Arts and Design at Woxsen University, in collaboration with the Public-School Principals’ Association (PSPA), conducted a Principal Leadership Programme on April 27, bringing together 30 principals from leading schools across Hyderabad for an immersive, design-led learning experience focused on rethinking leadership in contemporary education.

Participating institutions included Delhi Public School, Sloka International School (Tukkuguda), Jain Heritage Cambridge School, AVN Vida International School, CMR School (Medchal), and Gitanjali High School, among others. Designed as a hands-on, studio-based workshop, the programme moved beyond traditional formats, enabling participants to engage in collaborative problem-solving, systems thinking, and real-world leadership challenges.

The programme was delivered by Woxsen’s Centre for Learning Design (CLD) and the David Dunne Design Thinking Lab, and was guided by the university’s ERS (Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability) framework, reflecting an integrated and purpose-driven approach to leadership development.

Through guided design thinking exercises, principals explored new approaches to decision-making, innovation in school ecosystems, and building student-centric learning environments. The interactive format encouraged peer exchange and practical application, making the experience directly relevant to institutional leadership.

Rajendra Prasad, President of the PSPA, said, “The School Principals’ Leadership Workshop at Woxsen University was well organized and delivered with great impact. The sessions were highly engaging and insightful, and the programme received overwhelming positive feedback from participants for both its content and overall experience.”

Dr. Ashok Pandey, Member of the PSPA Leadership Team, shared, “An inspiring day at the picturesque Woxsen University campus, engaging with exceptional school leaders committed to designing the schools of tomorrow.” 

Dr. Adity Saxena, Dean, School of Arts & Design, said, “This programme is aligned with Woxsen’s core pillar of Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability, reinforcing our commitment to purpose-driven education. We see our role as bridging ideas, institutions, and impact in education, and we are grateful to PSPA and Rajendra Prasad for this meaningful collaboration.”

The initiative reflects Woxsen University’s commitment to strengthening the school education ecosystem in Telangana by building leadership capacity and fostering future-ready thinking among educators. Following the workshop, the PSPA leadership team engaged in a strategic discussion with Dr. Adity Saxena to explore future collaboration opportunities.

Building on the momentum of the programme, Woxsen University and PSPA are exploring the launch of a structured Principal Leadership Certificate Programme. The proposed initiative aims to institutionalize leadership development for school heads and further strengthen the region’s education ecosystem through sustained, practice-oriented engagement.

About Woxsen University, Hyderabad

Woxsen University, located in Hyderabad, is one of the first private universities in the state of Telangana, India. Renowned for its 200-acre state-of-the-art campus and infrastructure, Woxsen University offers new-age, disruptive programs in the fields of Business, Technology, Arts & Design, Architecture, Law, and Liberal Arts & Humanities. Woxsen also houses Asia’s largest Sports Infrastructure, spread over 60 acres. With 175 Global Partner Universities and a strong industry connect, Woxsen is recognized as one of the top universities for Academic Excellence and Global Edge. Woxsen has also secured the QS Business Masters World Ranking 2025, Rank #9 All India, Top 100 B-Schools by Times B-School Ranking 2025, Rank #6, Asia Pacific, Bloomberg Best B-School, and features in India’s Best B-Schools beyond IIMs by Dalal Street Investment Journal 2025, in 4th consecutive year. Woxsen is ranked as one of the Top Professional Colleges in India by Outlook I-CARE for its undergraduate programs, securing All India Rank 12 among the Top 130 BBA Private Institutes, All India Rank 20 among the Top 160 B.Tech Private Institutes, All India Rank 3 among the Top 25 Design Private Institutes, and All India Rank 3 among the Top 30 B. Arch Private Institutes.

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HarperCollins is proud to announce the publication of The Book of Daily Brilliance: 111 Days to Transformation by Pamela Puja Kirpalani

Published by HarperCollins

Hardback | Non-Fiction/Self-Help | 140 pp | INR 399

Available wherever books are sold | Releasing on 24 April 2026

NEW DELHI, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — HarperCollins Publishers India is thrilled to announce the publication of The Book of Daily Brilliance: 111 Days to Transformation by Pamela Puja Kirpalani, a practical guide towards a spiritual and psychological transformation.

ORDER HERE

ABOUT THE BOOK

Everyone in the world has good days and bad days. But what if there was a way to unleash one’s radiant self every day? Something simple yet profound—something the reader could reach for every day to centre themselves and remember what really matters.

The Book of Daily Brilliance is designed to speak to the heart and the highest self. Meant to be read over 111 days and covering topics that resonate with all—relationships, self-worth, love, pain, abundance, manifestation, surrender and much more—this daily reader will guide the one through a gentle yet powerful spiritual and psychological journey.

There is no fixed start date. No pressure to be perfect. If a day is skipped or there is a pause for a while, that is okay. All that’s needed to do is come back when it feels right. For those who choose to commit to the 111-day journey, the experience reveals the unfolding of a deeper truth within. 

So, take a deep breath. Open the page to Day 1 and let this be an invitation to return to oneself —one day, one page, one insight at a time.

Pamela Puja Kirpalani says, “One page can really just change the way you show up for your life. I wrote The Book of Daily Brilliance to be something you return to, not just read once — a daily pause that brings clarity, perspective and healing. In a fast-paced world, I believe even a single mindful page a day can create powerful inner psychological shifts. This 111 Daily Reader is my way of helping people reconnect with themselves— and if it helps someone feel more present, more grounded, and more like themselves, then it has done exactly what I hoped it would.”

Sachin Sharma, Publisher, HarperCollins India, says, The Book of Daily Brilliance offers a perfect pause amidst the busyness of life. Readers will appreciate how the book gently guides them through a journey of transformation—without any pressure—one step, one day at a time.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pamela Puja Kirpalani is the Founder of Inner High Living and a distinguished thought leader in the world of behavioural psychology and neuro-behaviour. Her vision materialized as she started coaching individuals, couples and parents on achieving their goals initially using Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) as a modality. She is certified by ABNlp (Australian Board of Neuro-Linguistic Programming), IEMT (Integrated Eye Movement Technique) Practitioner, member of the APSS Singapore and the NLP Association of Singapore.

ABOUT HARPERCOLLINS INDIA

At HarperCollins Publishers India, we believe in telling the best stories and ensuring they reach the widest readership. We publish around 250 new books every year across 10 imprints, adding to a diverse catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across print and digital formats. Our authors include APJ Abdul Kalam, Agatha Christie, Amish Tripathi, Amitav Ghosh (Erasmus Prize 2024), Jhumpa Lahiri, Paulo Coelho, Raghuram Rajan, Sudha Murty, Ruskin Bond and many more.

HarperCollins India has been honoured with seven Publisher of the Year awards and proudly represents global publishers such as Harvard University Press, Lonely Planet, Oneworld, Nosy Crow, Usborne and National Geographic Children.

We have also been certified as a Great Place to Work for two consecutive years, a testament to our culture, creativity and people.

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