Women's World Banking 166d ago

In this episode of Making Finance Work for Women, we speak with Monika Shukla, Co-Founder & CEO of Humble Bee, on how inclusive business models can unlock economic opportunity for women at the margins. Monika unpacks how she is transforming India’s beekeeping sector by integrating women—particularly landless and forest-fringe dwellers—pairing financial access with skills, market linkages, and ownership. With a bold goal of building one million sustainable livelihoods by 2028, this conversation offers practical insights on how to design, fund, and scale models that move beyond reach to real economic opportunity—where women are not just customers, but producers, earners, and drivers of growth. Guest: Monika Shukla, Co-Founder & CEO Humble Bee – Monika Shukla is a passionate social entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Humble Bee, an organization that revolutionizes beekeeping as a nature-based solution for sustainable agriculture, rural empowerment, and climate resilience. With over a decade of experience in platform building and systems thinking, Monika has championed micro-entrepreneurship, women empowerment, and eco-sustainability in India. Before Humble Bee, Monika co-founded LetsEndorse and led a tech-enabled micro-entrepreneurship model in partnership with SIDBI, empowering over 6,200 women, youth, and reverse migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic to launch small businesses and unlock $6 million in credit. Inspired by experiences with beekeepers across 18 Indian states, she co-created Humble Bee’s end-to-end solution for sustainable beekeeping, drawing inspiration from the AMUL cooperative model. An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University, Monika is also a German Chancellor Fellow (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation). Host: Sonja Kelly, Global Head, Women’s World Banking Institute Sonja is the global lead for Women’s World Banking research and learning. Through research on the financial sector, policy trends, financial services providers, and end users, Sonja and her team advocate for women’s financial inclusion. Before joining Women’s World Banking, she advised the U.S. Department of State on strategy for U.S. Embassy engagement in digital finance around the world. She has served as the director of research at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, has held consulting roles at the World Bank and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), and has worked in microfinance at Opportunity International. Sonja holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from American University where she researched financial inclusion policy and regulation.