Azra Salim
Managing Director and CEO of Shombhob Health Ltd.
India
Azra Salim is the Managing Director and CEO of Shombhob Health Ltd., which owns the e-commerce portal, shombhob.com, and a Director at Jayson Pharmaceuticals Ltd., one of the oldest pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Bangladesh.
Azra serves as the G100 Country Chair – Healthcare and Wellness, Bangladesh which is a global women’s leaders’ platform and also Membership Chair of Entrepreneur’s Organization Bangladesh, an international organization which is a global network of entrepreneurs to enable peer to peer learning.
She completed her Bachelor of Science in Economics with a concentration in Finance from Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, USA. After earning her degree from there, she worked in Pennsylvania for a Consulting company from 2000 till 2003, doing Financial Consulting for their Fortune 500 clientele. During her employment there she got the opportunity to work with many multi-national pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, which have added value to her career in Bangladesh.
She returned to Bangladesh and joined the family-owned business at Jayson Group. She was actively involved in the management of the pharmaceutical manufacturing business till 2020. Azra is very passionate about incorporating technology to make operations more efficient, and she was instrumental in implementation of the ERP software and Salesforce Automation software in Jayson.
After the onset of Covid 19, Azra felt the need for a reliable e-commerce solution to make access to medicines and healthcare products easier for the people of Bangladesh. Azra followed her belief that technology properly utilized can improve the human condition. She is passionate about improving healthcare for the people of Bangladesh. She founded Shombhob in 2021 as a digital platform to improve access to guidance and healthcare products, e.g., pharmaceuticals and other healthcare/beauty products (and pet medicines/products) to the people of Bangladesh. The population density of Bangladeshi cities results in substantial traffic congestion and difficulties for residents to access medicines and related healthcare products. Shombhob has a unique opportunity to provide authentic medicines and healthcare products more conveniently. Bangladesh is currently investing heavily in broadband access. E-commerce/online shopping is rapidly growing, like the US 10-15 years ago.
With her industry background and passion for healthcare, she gives shombhob.com an edge over the competition, to become the market leader in this space.