With a total net worth of $4.06 billion, four Indian-origin women reached the Forbes list of America’s 100 richest self-made women.
With a total net worth of $4.06 billion, four Indian-origin women reached the Forbes list of America’s 100 richest self-made women. Forbes has named four Indian-origin women to its list: Jayshree Ullal, president and CEO of computer networking firm Arista Networks; Neerja Sethi, co-founder of IT consulting and outsourcing firm Synte; Neha Narkhede, co-founder and former chief technology officer (CTO) of cloud company Confluent; and Indra Nooyi, former chair and CEO of PepsiCo.
Here’s everything you need to know about the women included on the list:
Jayshree Ullal
Ullal is ranked 15th on the list and has a net worth of $2.4 billion. She has been president and CEO of publicly traded Arista Networks since 2008, and she owns around 2.4 percent of the company’s equity. In 2022, Arista generated about $4.4 billion in sales.
Ullal also serves on the board of directors of Snowflake, a cloud computing firm that plans to go public in September 2020. She has also worked for Advanced Micro Devices, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Cisco Systems, among others.
The 62-year-old studied electrical engineering and engineering management at San Francisco State University.
Neerja Sethi
Sethi, 68, is ranked 25th on the list and has a net worth of $990 million. Neerja Sethi and her husband Bharat Desai co-founded IT consultancy and outsourcing firm Syntel in their Troy, Michigan apartment in 1980. In October 2018, French IT major Atos SE paid $3.4 billion for Syntel, and Sethi received an estimated $510 million for her portion.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts/Science, Master of Business Administration, and Master of Science degrees from Delhi University and Oakland University, respectively.
Neha Narkhede
With a net worth of $520 million, Narkhede, 38, is rated 50th on the list. As a LinkedIn software engineer, she contributed to the open-source messaging system Apache Kafka’s development to handle the networking site’s large data intake. She and two LinkedIn colleagues departed in 2014 to start Confluent, which helps businesses manage enormous amounts of data using Apache Kafka.
According to Forbes, the $586 million (2022 sales) company went public in June 2021 at a $9.1 billion value, with Narkhede owning approximately 6%.
Narkhede unveiled her new startup, fraud detection firm Oscilar, where she is co-founder and CEO, in March 2023.
Indra Nooyi
PepsiCo’s former chair and CEO, Indra Nooyi, departed in 2019 after 24 years with the firm, half of which she spent as CEO. The 67-year-old is ranked 77th on the list and has a net worth of $350 million.
As CEO, she successfully resisted a plan to break up PepsiCo, nearly doubled sales, and promoted healthier goods and ecologically responsible practises. Her fortune is derived from shares she received while working at PepsiCo.
Nooyi was born in India and joined Amazon’s board of directors in 2019. She earned an MBA from Yale before becoming one of the few female CEOs in corporate America in 2006.
Daine Hendricks, co-founder of ABC Supply, topped the list for the sixth time in a row. ABC Supply is a major wholesale distributor of roofing, siding, and windows in the United States. According to Forbes, Hendricks, 76, has a net worth of USD 15 billion.
To calculate net worths, Forbes used stock prices from May 12, 2023 to evaluate individual assets, including holdings in public firms, and appraised private enterprises by speaking with outside experts and conservatively comparing them to public companies.
