Technology space has been always termed as a male-dominated industry. We have seen lots of names including the world’s richest Jeff Bezos and more who are spearheading the technology sector, women still remain a minority. However, this is not the case now, women have entered the technology space and are showcasing the world that gender is no barrier to success. In this article, we are going to talk about the top 5 women in the technology, in no specific order, that has made their way to the top.
Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube
Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, is a known name in the tech industry. Susan was employee number 16 when she joined Google in 1999. She was the company’s first marketing manager and one of the first roles in Google was to design a special Google logo for special events and holidays. Today, Google Doodle is loved by everyone around the world. She came with an idea that changed Google’s advertising potential. She developed Google AdSense, which is now considered as the most important way to learn money through websites.
In 2006, Wojcicki convinced Google co-founders to buy YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars. YouTube is now considered as the pinnacle of the online video-sharing platform. YouTube currently has billions of monthly active users. In 2014, Wojcicki becomes the CEO of YouTube and under her leadership, YouTube has grown to more than 1.8 billion monthly users and she played an important role in expanding YouTube and introducing a number of other segments like YouTube Gaming, YouTube Music, YouTube Premium and YouTube TV. Susan Wojcicki net worth is estimated to be 480 million dollars and she was ranked at Number 7 on Forbes’ Power Women List.
Ginni Rometty, CEO, IBM
Virginia Ginni Rometty is an icon in the technology space and inspiration for many across the world. She has served as the Chief Executive Officer at IBM for the last eight years. She is the first woman to lead the company. She joined IBM as a system engineer in 1981 and then eventually with her hard work she made it to the top of the list. Ginni has held a series of leadership positions across the company and LED the successful integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is considered as the largest in professional services history.
In 2012, she becomes the CEO and President of IBM, becoming the ninth CEO in the company’s history. She also played an important role over the Red Hat acquisition, which is considered as one of the largest acquisitions in the company’s history. Ginni has led IBM through the most significant transformation in its history, reinventing the company to lead in the new era of AI, blockchain, cybersecurity and quantum technologies.
Meg Whitman, CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Meg Whitman is considered as one of the most powerful women in the technology space. She was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Whitman is credited for establishing eBay and she is also known for her entrance in politics.
In the 1990s, she served as an executive at Hasbro and she is known for establishing two children’s brands known as Playskool and Mr. Potato Head. She also imported UK’s children’s television show Teletubbies into the US. Whitman joined eBay in March 1998. At that time, the company had only 30 employees and a revenue of approximately $4 million. During her tenure as the CEO through 2009, the company grew to approx. 15,000 employees and the revenue skyrocketed to $8 billion. In 2011, she joined Hewlett-Packard and she was named as the CEO of the company on September 22, 2011. In 2017, she stepped down as CEO oF HP Inc but remained the CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In 2018, she stepped down from this position as well. Her husband, Griffith Harsh, is a renowned neurosurgeon, Stanford professor and Rhodes Scholar. She has a net worth of approx. $3.8 billion.
Safra A. Catz, CEO, Oracle
Safra A. Catz is another leading name in the technology industry. Catz joined Oracle Corporation in 1999. She shortly became company’s board of directors in October 2001 and president in 2004. She is credited for Oracle acquisition of PeopleSoft, which is valued around $10 billion. Catz becomes Oracle’s CFO in 2011 and she was recently promoted as the sole CEO of Oracle.
Catz was also a director of HSBC Group from 2008 to 2015. In 2009 she was ranked by Fortune as the 12th most powerful woman in business. In 2009 she was also ranked by Forbes as the 16th most powerful business-woman. She is also considered as one of the highest-paid women in the technology space.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
Sheryl Sandberg is known for her important role in building Facebook as a portable organization. Sheryl joined Google after work with Larry Summers, who was then serving as the United States Secretary of the Treasury. Sandberg was responsible for online sales of Google advertising and publishing products. During our tenure, she grew the ad and sales team from four to 4,000 people.
In 2007, March Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, met her at a series of dinner meetings and she was offered the role of COO. She played a pivotal role in making Facebook a portable organisation. In 2012, she becomes the eighth member and the first women to be promoted as Facebook’s board of directors. She also released her first book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, which sold more than one million copies and it was on the list of top bestseller since its release.
CISCO- Sandy Lerner
The networking hardware and software giant, CISCO, was started by Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack, two Stanford University computer scientists who were prominent in connecting computers at Stanford. They pioneered the concept of local area network (LAN) being used to connect geographically disparate computers over a multiprotocol router system.
Sandy used the money from sales to pursue an interest in animal welfare and women’s writing. She’s also a philanthropist and invested money into the restoration of the Chawton House, which was once owned by Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Austen Knight.
Affectiva- Rana el Kaliouby and Rosalind Picard
Affectiva is an emotion measurement technology company that grew out of MIT’s Media Lab. Affectiva has developed software that can figure out human emotions based on facial cues and physiological responses. It plans on harnessing the power of emotional recognition technology which is used to help brands improve their advertising and marketing messages.
Its owners are Rana el Kaliouby who is an Egyptian-American computer scientist and entrepreneur in the field of expression recognition research and technology development and Rosalind Wright Picard who is an American scholar and inventor and a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT.
Adafruit- Limor Fried
Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells a number of electronics products, electronics components, tools and accessories. It also produces a number of learning resources, including live and recorded videos related to electronics, technology, and programming.
Limor Fried is an alma mater of MIT with a BS in electrical engineering and computer science and a master of engineering in EECS as well. In 2005, she found the Adafruit industries in her dorm room and then moved it to New York.In 2009, she was awarded the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for her participation in the open-source hardware and software community.
Fried was awarded the Most Influential Women in Technology award, in 2011, by Fast Company magazine and became the first female engineer featured on the cover of Wired.
HTC- Cher Wang
HTC or High tech computers was founded on 15 May 1997 by Cher wang. HTC began as an original design manufacturer and original equipment manufacturer, designing and manufacturing laptop computers and then moved to on to manufacturing smartphones based on windows and then Android. Cher wang, its owner is a Taiwanese entrepreneur and philanthropist.She is considered one of the most powerful and successful women in technology. Wang was born on 15thSeptember 1958 and studied in The College Preparatory School in Oakland, California, and went on to receive her bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981.
In May 2011, Forbes ranked her with husband Wen-Chi Chen as the wealthiest person in Taiwan, with a net worth of US$8.8 billion.[8] In August 2012, Wang was named No. 56 on Forbes’ list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. As of 2014, she is listed as the 54th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.
Flickr- Caterina Fake
Flickr is an image and video hosting service with over 87 million registered users. It was created by Ludicorp with its founder being Caterina Fake.
Caterina Fake is an American entrepreneur and businesswoman who also co-founded Hunch in 2011. Along with being a tech entrepreneur, she has also been a trustee of multiple nonprofit organizations and was the chairwoman of Etsy. For her role in creating Flickr, Fake was listed in Time magazine’s Time 100, and she has been recognized within Silicon Valley for her work as an angel investor.
She is an alma mater of Vassar College with a degree in English. Fake taught herself how to create websites which was the starting point of her journey as a tech giant.