Women in business are doing miraculous things while spreading the word, that nothing can bog them down. They are not just paving a path for themselves but also inspiring many other women who wish to be like them. One such inspiring female entrepreneur is Fatima Zaidi, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Quill Inc. Fatima is a podcast aficionado and saw the promise that the podcasting industry offered quite early on. There was an unforeseen opportunity and her experience in a marketing agency gave her an amazing idea, an idea that became the foundation of Quill Inc.
Train to Canada …
Born and brought up in the Middle East to Pakistani parents, Fatima moved to Canada in early 2007. For Fatima, Canada was the land of dreams, where there were opportunities for everyone despite their class, color, ethnicity, or gender. Canada was the place where hard work was awarded and Fatima was ready to give in her everything, all her effort. She worked three part-time jobs while she was in college, knowing that it will all add up one day. Finally, she graduated without a single penny in debt and with big, brave, and bold ambitions.
She soon jumped on the startup bandwagon, running a marketing agency for six years before establishing Quill Inc. Fatima is a member of the National Speakers Bureau and she has spoken at various events around the world on media and tech trends, leading her to keynote on world stages alongside speakers like Gary Vaynerchuk, and, most recently, Richard Branson. In addition to being a commentator for BNN Bloomberg, she is a frequent contributor to publications, including The Globe and Mail and Huffington Post. Over the past few years, she has won two Top 30 under 30 awards and been recognized as one of Flare Magazine’s Top 100 Women.
About Quill Inc.
The vision of Quill Inc. is to facilitate connections to the trusted resources that podcasters need in order to better inspire, educate, entertain, and engage audiences everywhere. Quill Inc. also identified and solved 3 main challenges with generalist marketplaces which makes our platform unique:
- A focus on quantity over quality
- The minimal vetting of the so-called freelancers, with the onus for vetting and selection of a freelancer falling primarily onus on the consumer
- The lack of restrictions with regards to service pricing. Podcasters have very specific needs that are currently unmet on these platforms, with most freelancers providing unrelated services or, if related, providing work of uncertain quality.
Quill Inc. launched in February of last year, right before the lockdown started. However, they easily navigated through that year and closed the very year with a record million dollars in sales. Their profit margins on revenue were almost 50% and they had already landed an impressive roster of international clients including Sick Kids Hospital, RBC, CIBC, Globe and Mail, etc. This has all been possible because of the able leadership of Fatima and the excellent team at Quill Inc.
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Fatima has over ten years of experience in Business Development, Marketing, and Strategy.
Fatima Zaidi is the CEO and Founder of Quill Inc. a full-service podcasting hosting platform and production agency that supports brands in launching their podcasts. She is also the owner of the Listen In Conference held in Los Angeles that supports brands moving into podcasting. As a member of the National Speakers Bureau, Fatima has spoken at various events around the world on media and tech trends leading her to keynote on world stages alongside speakers like Gary Vaynerchuk, and most recently Richard Branson.
She also teaches podcasting at the University of Toronto. In addition to being a commentator for BNN Bloomberg on the challenges that female and BIPOC founders face in entrepreneurship, she is a frequent contributor to publications including The Globe and Mail, and Huffington Post. Over the past few years, she has won two Top 30 under 30 awards, the Young Professional of the Year by Notable Life, Veuve Clicquot’s Bold Future Award, and one of Flare Magazine’s Top 100 Women. Fatima is the Co-Chair of the #Tech4SickKids council for SickKids Foundation & Hospital on track to raise $25 million with her team, and her career highlight is being on a panel with Beyonce’s dad!
