Four Indian-origin women, including Jayashree Ullal and Indra Nooyi, have been included in the list of America’s 100 Most Successful Women by American business magazine Forbes. On July 10, Forbes released its list of America’s 100 Most Successful Entrepreneurs, Executives and Entertainers.
According to the list, four Indian-origin business tycoons, including the chairman and CEO of computer networking firm Arista Networks; Jayshree Ullal, co-founder of IT consulting and outsourcing firm Synte; Neerja Sethi, co-founder and former chief technology officer (CTO) of cloud company Confluent; Neha Narkhede and former PepsiCo chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi are among the 100 richest self-made women in America.
Jayshree Ullal
Jayashree Ullal (62) is the President and CEO of Arista Networks, a computer networking firm. He is ranked 15th on the list and has a net worth of $2.4 billion. He holds 2.4 per cent shares of Arista Networks. The company projects revenue of around $4.4 billion in 2022. Ullal is also on the board of directors of ‘Snowflake’, a cloud computing company which went public in September 2020.
Educational qualification: Ullal holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from San Francisco State University and engineering management from Santa Clara University.
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Neerja Sethi
Neerja Sethi (68) ranked 25th in the Forbes list of America’s 100 Richest Self-Made Women. Sethi and her husband Bharat Desai co-founded the IT consulting and outsourcing firm Syntel in 1980. Atos SE, a French IT firm, bought Syntel for $3.4 billion in October 2018 and Sethi received an estimated $510 million for his stake.
Educational qualification: Sethi holds a Bachelor of Arts/Science and Master of Business Administration from Delhi University (DU) and Master of Science from Oakland University.
Neha Narkhede
Neha Narkhede (38), co-founder and former chief technology officer of cloud company Confluent, is ranked 50th on the Forbes 2023 list. Narkhede is a software engineer turned entrepreneur and has a net worth of $520 million. He helped develop the open-source messaging system ‘Apache Kafka’ to help develop LinkedIn’s massive data flows. In March 2023, Narkhede announced his new company, $586 million (2022 revenue), fraud detection firm Oscillator which went public in June 2021 at a valuation of $9.1 billion. According to Forbes, he owns about 6 percent of the company.
Educational qualification: Narkhede went to the Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT) of the University of Pune, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSc Engineering). In 2007, he earned a Masters in Technology (MTech) degree from Georgia Tech.
Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi (67) is the former chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo and has been ranked 77th in the list. Nooyi, who has a net worth of $350 million, left the beverage company in 2019 after being associated for nearly 24 years. His fortune is made from the stock that he got while working at PepsiCo. Nooyi was named one of Corporate America’s few female CEOs in 2006. His wealth is a result of the shares he received as a PepsiCo employee.
Educational qualification: Nooyi grew up in India and earned her MBA from Yale, and in 2006 was named one of the few female CEOs in Corporate America.