Ten Times Indian Women Have Shattered The Glass Ceiling In The Global IT Scene

This was originally posted in the Polka Cafe

As we all know, the gender divide in the workplace continues to be a problem across the globe. While the numbers are low, there are times Indian women have proven that perhaps it’s not a glass ceiling, it’s a sticky floor that is holding people back. Here are ten women who have broken their fair share of glass ceilings and have proved that there is no such thing as a ‘man’s job.’

Rashmi Sinha, CEO and co-founder of SlideShare, inked a deal with LinkedIn for almost $200M!

Image credit: Women 2.0

Rashmi Sinha, originally from Delhi, has a PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology from Brown University. In 2007, Rashmi started SlideShare, which then was acquired by LinkedIn for $199M. In the past, she also worked on MindCanvas (a game-like software for customer research) and co-founded Uzanto, a user experience consulting company.You can follow her journey via her blog here.

CEO Jayshree Ullal leads Arista Networks to IPO

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Jayshree Ullal joined Cisco via an acquisition and then oversaw 15-20 acquisitions as a Senior Vice President. She was then picked by Arista Networks to be their CEO, and under her leadership, the shares increased by 28% on opening as it raised $226M in IPO.

Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan left Google to found leading advertising platform, Drawbridge

Image credit: Women Of Vision

Mumbai girl Kamakshi had the vision to re-define the way mobile advertising was being done. She left a cushy job as Lead Scientist at Google to follow her dream, and founded Drawbridge in 2010. She has the unique distinction of her work being on board New Horizons, NASA’s farthest space mission. She has been named one of Business Insider’s “Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising” three years in a row. In 2014, she was named one of Ad Age’s “40 Under 40”, as well as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist.

Pooja Sankar, CEO and founder of Piazza, got invited to meet the VP of the United States

Image credit: MPW

Pooja Sankar, an IIT Kanpur alumni, experienced the lack of peer learning and decided to do something about it. While in Business School at Stanford, Pooja was intrigued by the business ideas all around her, and spent the summer working on Piazza. Soon Stanford, MIT, Harvard and many others started using her product. To honour achievements of women, in 2012, Vice President Joe Biden invited her to a reception at his official residence in Washington, DC! Follow her here.

Raji Arasu transitioned from VP of Technology at eBay to CTO of StubHub

Image credit: Ebay.inc

Raji Arasu started her career as a Software Engineer at Oracle and grew to the role of VP of Technology at eBay, where she led numerous technology innovations. In 2011, she made the switch to CTO of StubHub, where she leads all product and engineering functions for the company. As one of the few female CTOs at a major technology company across the industry, Raji is passionate about growing women leaders in technology, both within the company and externally. Follow her here.

Box acquired analytics startup dLoop, founded by Technical Leader and Entrepreneur Divya Jain

Image credit: Box

After a career as a Software Engineer in companies like Sun Microsystems and EMC, Divya Jain got interested in Machine Learning in 2009, and by 2010, had completed a graduate certificate in data mining and analysis from Stanford. She then built dLoop, a company that uses machine learning algorithms to sort documents by relevance. In 2013, Box acquired her company, which gave it a level of data analytics that is often a required feature for enterprise customers. Follow her here.

Padmasree Warrior became Cisco’s first female CTO

Image credit: Access

Born and raised in Vijayawada, Padmasree was one of the few female students in IIT Delhi. After a Master’s degree at Cornell, she rose to the role of CTO at Motorola where she achieved great success. She joined Cisco in 2007 as CTO and subsequently co-led the worldwide engineering organisation. Many awards and accolades later, she is now the Chief Technology and Strategy Officer (CTSO) at Cisco, and is continually working on encouraging women in STEM careers. As of 2014, she is listed as the 71st most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. Follow her here.

Kirthiga Reddy appointed Head of Office, Facebook India

Image credit: Steve Maller photography

Kirthiga single-handedly started Facebook’s India division from scratch – shifting base from the US when she was offered this job. Under Kirthiga’s leadership, big and small Indian brands started using Facebook as an advertising platform. During the 2011 Cricket World Cup, PepsiCo India leveraged the social networking giant during their ‘Change the game’ campaign, thus exceeding their campaign targets. Follow her here.

Kumud Srinivasan runs Intel’s India operations as President

Image credit: Kumud Srinivasan

Kumud moved from Kolkata to New York to get an MS in Information Studies. Her move to Intel in 2008 was a ‘happy accident’, and it was there that she led several innovations, including the transition from 200mm wafers to 300mm. When she was offered the job to head Intel’s India operations, she jumped at the idea to move back so she could give back to the community in which she had been born and brought up. Follow her here.

Pavni Diwanji leads Google’s initiative to make their suite of products more kid-friendly

Image credit: Hackbright Academy

After college in Ahmedabad, Pavni went on to do a Masters in Computer Science from Stanford University. She spent the early part of her career at Sun Microsystems, and went on to start multiple successful companies before joining Google, where she led the development of Google+. In 2014, Pavni was appointed to lead development of versions of its most popular products, such as Search and YouTube for kids aged 12 and under. Follow her here.

Which of these accomplished women are you most inspired by? Share your thoughts and any names we may have missed out in the comments section!