Joanna Bichsel
CEO & Co-Founder, Kasha
Kenya
Joanna Bichsel is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kasha, an ecommerce company in East Africa offering confidential access to women’s health and personal care products like contraceptives and menstrual care. Kasha serves women of all socioeconomic levels across urban and rural areas of Rwanda and Kenya. Kasha’s mission is to revolutionize the way that women in low income countries get the products they need to take care of themselves. Joanna Bichsel was born in Poland, raised in Canada, has a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science and has worked on technology solutions around the world. Early in her career, Joanna spent 11 years at Microsoft first as an engineer and later as a business leader. Prior to starting Kasha, Joanna was the Principal Technology Advisor for Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working across East and West Africa and South Asia on technology strategies and solutions to optimize the supply chain of vaccines, family planning and other public health commodities, also on health services delivery, agriculture and fintech. Joanna lives in Kenya with her husband and two young children. Her company Kasha is named after her daughter, with the deep understanding that all mothers want their daughters to live their best lives, with nothing holding them back