Aanchal Gupta: From Small Town to Tech Powerhouse

From a small town in India to shaping global tech landscapes across Europe and Asia, Aanchal Gupta’s journey is one of bold moves, relentless curiosity, and transformative impact. An early leader at Cloudflare, a driver of digital innovation in manufacturing, and now at the forefront of AI solutions with AgentsStack, she has built her career on solving complex problems with clarity and vision. Alongside her global achievements, Aanchal remains deeply committed to mentoring the next generation and opening doors for young women and aspiring leaders in tech.

You’ve worked across Europe and Asia in tech — what first drew you to this field?

I am always excited for products and solutions driving fast growth of the economy and connecting people. Tech has the potential to accelerate economic output significantly. Moving to Europe was more to get international experience where I worked on driving topline improvements in Revenue at large Orgs like Dow Chemicals and Halliburton. The move to Asia was driven by the fast growth happening in Asia while a slowdown in the EU economy. Being a computer science engineer with a core bent of mind in business, tech seems to be the obvious connector for growth.

What was it like being part of Cloudflare’s growth from just a handful of people to hundreds?

It was super fun. Being an early member I was the hiring manager for every candidate since the beginning to matured stage and I love meeting new candidates and bringing in new experiences. Building each country and region specially Japan and Korea was exciting. Working with customers across Asia and solving for imminent pain points was great. Seeing the company going public was a great experience. I also had two kids while at Cloudflare and it was great to have an integrated and balanced life.

At Tulip Interfaces, you worked with manufacturers — what’s one thing you learned about how factories are changing with technology?

The change in Asia is actually very slow, which has its own advantages. As of now most advancement has happened on the machines. The huge opportunity now is to connect humans to the machines with tech driving digitization in the frontline which can be huge given everyone is used to working on phones everyday. It’s a different interface and design needed and the potential efficiency and throughput gain could be absolutely massive. The economy will leapfrog skipping Industry 4.0 with AI if done right.

Now at AgentsStack, you’re building AI solutions for manufacturing and energy. What problem are you most excited to solve?

Ultimately, the goal is to generate economic output of the economy which needs high value creation for customers that can then be distributed in the entire ecosystem. The biggest efficiency levers are Energy efficiency and Frontline productivity improvement through AI native solutions with high adoption. Energy efficiency within the transmission industry for example can be up to 40%, same in container shopping, in manufacturing may be 5-10%. Operational efficiency in manufacturing can be 20-40% by digitizing the right processes.

You’ve also worked with governments. Why do you think collaboration between companies and governments is so important in tech?

Ultimately, it’s the Govt that’s accountable to the people and for the economy. Tech and AI can have huge impact on ethics and governance if not implemented right and it’s important to have Govt in loop in the tech ecosystem to have accountability for both the tech as well as what large enterprises are driving with it as they are the largest employers in the country that can have direct impact on the population. Tech is not just a VC investment mechanism, it lies at the core of our daily lives and children and plays a crucial role in Governance.

You’ve been a strong voice for women in tech. What advice do you give to young women starting their careers?

Try a lot of different things to figure out their best fit the fast

Get mentors as early as possible

Be bold in taking risks early on as there is little to lose 

Watch people careers on LinkedIn – local and global

Career Compass is helping people in smaller cities in India — why was this so important to you to start?

I come from a small town in India and the start was mainly for the kids there to make them aware of different options other than Engineering and Medical which is where every Indian kid is promoted to go. Joining McKinsey as my first job and working with a global team made me meet people from all the diverse experiences and degrees and the original idea came from there to help kids and parents choose options. Lately I have spent less time officially but mostly been mentoring folks I have been working with in professional experience with the companies.

Across all your roles, what’s been your proudest achievement so far?

There is actually none, I don’t think I am proud of anything done so far in my professional career. 

I love kids the most and they are the proudest achievement raising along with fast growth companies 🙂 I love travelling and meeting new people and having travelled more than 40 countries during the professional moves is another thing I am proud of. There are people to go back to and meet in every country.

What keeps you motivated when the challenges feel big?

Love solving problems so every challenge is mainly an opportunity to solve another problem, that’s been the story of life so far. The bigger the task at hand, the bigger the challenges, as long as there are people on the way to help tackle it as a team, big challenges get broken down into smaller parts to solve.

Looking ahead, what’s your dream for the future — both for AgentsStack and for the next generation of leaders?

Agents Stack has two core focus – 

1. Continue to Drive efficiency solving tough operational problems generating higher economic benefits for all – defend the core in Cyber, Cloud, ESG, AI.
2. Drive growth and new frontiers with innovation on products for high adoption and solve for obvious problems that often get overlooked with fast growth – Mental health, sustainability, governance/policy, education reforms, financial inclusion

Next Generation of leaders have a much tougher role integrating two different generations – one with very high real experience but no tech adoption and the one with no real experience but highly native users of AI which are needed in the workforce for innovation and efficiency. It will be a transformation everyday for both generations and those who can have a global, optimistic and realistic view to the challenges with high integrity in operating would have an obvious advantage. Those who have had prior experience working with both generations of young minds and at retirement + tech will have an obvious advantage over anyone just playing around products with AI. diverse perspectives, global and local teams collaboration, ethical and governance around tech usage.