International Women’s Day 2021: From Whitney Wolfe Herd, Roshni Nadar Malhotra to Kimberly Bryant-top 5 influential women changing tech industry
Each year March 8 is slated to celebrate the special occasion- International Women’s Day. With usual fanfare, the day celebrates the economic, social, political, and cultural achievements of women irrespective of their ethnic, linguistic, national, and cultural division.
From demonstrations in the streets of Europe to speaking of women’s representation in parliament, women have since long been raising their voices to fight against social and economic marginalization. While industries are gradually evolving, we have slowly begun to witness a dynamic culture in many leading sectors.
Proud to say, that women have managed to hold high leadership roles in the tech industry. From diving deep to speak against diversity to climbing up the ladder some of these have earned a fair share of cheering from people across the globe.
As part of celebrating International Women’s Day 2021, we have compiled a list of such influential pioneers from the 21st century who are changing the future of tech.
Susan Wojcicki
Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube has been working in the tech industry for over a decade now. She was entitled as one of the most powerful women on the internet. Not only was she involved in developing Google’s search engine, but she also became the Mountain View-based company’s first marketing manager in 1999.
Wojcicki has been serving as CEO of YouTube since 2014. Being a pioneer of diversity in the workplace, she has encouraged women to be a part of the diverse tech industry. at Forbes’ BoardForward Awards event in 2018, Susan cited that the key to making progress in this industry is when leaders firmly believed that diversity should be a priority.
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Whitney Wolfe Herd, the US-business tycoon became the talk of the town last month as she became the youngest entrepreneur to earn the title in billionaires list after her online dating app Bumble hit the New York Stock Exchange. A former executive at Tinder, Whitney founded the dating app with Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev back in 2014. She also operates another dating app called Badoo which was previously owned by Andrev.
Image source: SMU
While women only account for a mere 5 percent of the global 500 biggest fortunes (as per Bloomberg Billionaires Index), Whitney managed to become one of the youngest self-made billionaires to join the male-dominated grand club. To note, Whitney owns an 11.6% stake in Bumble that operates in 150 countries.
Kimberly Bryant
Kimberly Bryant, the founder of Black Girls Code (a non-profit organisation) has long been working to increase the number of women of colour in the tech space. Her organisation founded in 2011 is aimed to impart technical know-how for the African American girls who are talented in the STEM and computer science field. She was a Champion of Change for Tech Inclusion at the White House back in 2013, and also managed to earn a title in 25 most influential African Americans in Technology.
Roshni Nadar Malhotra
Not just global, women from home turf are also excelling in the tech hub. Roshni Nadar Malhotra is one such woman in the list who is leading one of the renowned IT company HCL in India. She became the chairperson of HCL Technologies in July 2020. A trustee of Shiv Nadar Foundation, she took over the entire company from founder Shiv Nadar (her father) last year.
An Alma mater of Kellogg school of management, Nadar was honoured with The World’s Most Innovative People Award for Philanthropic Innovation by WSIE (The World Summit on Innovation & Entrepreneurship) in 2015. She was also ranked as one of the Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women (55th rank) last year. Notably, Nadar also runs The Habitat Trust that works towards protecting natural habitats.
Deepa Madhavan
Deepa Madhavan needs no separate introduction as this influential pioneer has been in the tech world for two long decades. Working as a Director, product and Engineering Global Data Governance and Reg Tech in PayPal, Deepa has played an effective role in women empowerment as well.
A former member at Deloitte, PennWell corp, she has been mentoring many women in the industry and has managed to break the stereotype in the tech hub. Not only has she led the technology solution for Data Privacy for PayPal but she also became the force behind the cause ‘Girls in Tech.’
