Sanchita, originally from Reading, moved to London at 18 to study Mathematics with Business at UCL and, upon graduating with a 2:1, chose against the city career path of her peers to instead pursue her creative ambitions in broadcasting.

She achieved this successfully with 7 years at the BBC, starting in TV production and finance there, then moving into radio, entering Radio 1 in 2000, then as part of the start-up team to help create and launch the BBC's digital black music station, 1Xtra.

Sanchita stayed on at 1Xtra after its successful launch, working in both production and operational roles, before leaving to further whet her entrepreneurial appetite and research an idea she'd envisaged in 2004, to create an easy way for professional London newcomers to integrate quickly and successfully into city life, connect with and meet new friends and explore the city's great social scene with other like minded people.

Her ambition was not only to create a business that performed well financially, but that also made a positive social impact and difference to people's lives.

She spent the next 18 months researching and developing her idea, having raised initial funding from the Prince's Trust, and was nominated as a regional finalist in the Shell Livewire Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2005 recognising her for her achievements and ambition during this time.

Sanchita then raised investment to design, build and launch version 1 site CitySocialising London in January 2007 and, following its immediate success, expanded the site and service to cover Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol, Brighton, Edinburgh and Glasgow after just eight months.

With organic growth, through word-of-mouth and natural optimisation alone, CitySocialising has made an important difference to the lives of many thousands of young city professionals across the UK and Sanchita is currently working on an extensively developed version 2 site and service with plans to establish CitySocialising further in the UK and into Europe.

Sanchita was recently recognised in Management Today's list of '35 Women Under 35' 2008, in association with Microsoft and was recently named winner of the 'People's Choice' award as part of Girls! Make Your Mark and Handbag.com business awards 2008. Sanchita has also been shortlisted as a finalist in the 'Young Entrepreneur of the Year' category in the Growing Business Awards 2008, in association with Real Business. sanchita@citysocialising.com