022: Joanna Bichsel Pioneering Women's E-Commerce in East Africa
b'Joanna Bichsel is the CEO and co-founder of Kasha, East Africa\\u2019s leading e-commerce platform for women\\u2019s health and personal care products. You can connect with her @JoannaBichsel on Twitter. Born and raised in Canada, Joanna worked as a software developer at Microsoft in Seattle in the US. Disinterested in climbing the corporate ladder, she changed careers and moved into development. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she learned that women in Africa faced real challenges in buying sanitary pads and other basic health products. She thought, \\u201cWhy not develop a e-commerce platform for women to buy affordable, high quality health products confidentially?\\u201d The idea for Kasha was born. In 2015, Joanna set up the company with her co-founder Amanda Arch in Rwanda and has recently launched in Kenya. While East Africa was the logical starting point, Joanna aims for Kasha to disrupt how women buy health products in emerging markets around the world. We chatted about Joanna\\u2019s move to Rwanda, how she finally got women to trust e-commerce, and why investors \\u201cdon\\u2019t care about your idea.\\u201d Without further ado, here\\u2019s my conversation with Joanna Bichsel.'