Meet Jayshree Ullal, who is on Forbes' list of America's Richest Self-Made Women

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated: Jul 06, 2022, 10:16 AM IST

(Image Source: Twitter@Forbes)

Jayshree Ullal ranks 15th on the Forbes' list, below Alice Schwartz, co-founder of Bio-Rad Laboratories and above reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

Its a proud moment for India as an Indian-origin woman has entered the Forbes' list of richest self-made women. With a net worth of USD 1.7 billion, Jayshree Ullal, CEO of Arista Networks, is one of only five Indian-Americans on Forbes' list of America's richest self-made women.

Jayshree Ullal ranks 15th on the Forbes' list, below Alice Schwartz, co-founder of Bio-Rad Laboratories and above reality TV star Kim Kardashian. She reached to the spot with a net worth of USD 2.1 billion in 2022. However, due to the weakness in the stock market, her net worth has come down slightly to USD 1.7 billion at present.

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Jayshree Ullal was born in London in 1961 and raised in New Delhi. She studied electrical engineering at San Francisco State University and engineering management at Santa Clara University, after which she joined the Arista team when it made no revenue and had less than 50 employees. In 2008, she was named president and CEO of the company.

Jayshree Ullal's journey

Jayshree V Ullal is the President and CEO of computer networking company Arista Networks. Jayshree has been leading this company since 2008. According to Forbes, she joined the Board of Directors of a cloud computing company called Snowflake and the company went public in September 2020. Going public means, after the IPO, it was listed in the stock market.

This company generated revenue of USD 2.3 billion in 2020, which was about 4% less than its 2019 revenue. Ullal owns 5% of Arista Network's stock. Ullal is also credited for making the company a billion dollar business by bringing the historic and successful IPO of Arista Network in June 2014. She was associated with the company at a time when she had no revenue and had only around 50 employees.

Born in London, Raised in India

Jayshree V Ullal, a Tamilian by birth was born in London but grew up in Delhi and then moved to the United States. She studied electrical engineering from San Francisco State University and engineering management from Santa Clara University.

Forbes has quoted one of Ullal's words on its website, which shows how much respect Jayshree Ullal gives to her teammates. Her quote reads, "As human beings we all want to do a good job, we want to be accepted and praised. Treat your teammates and team with respect, develop their inner strengths and use their full potential."

Awards received by Jayshree Ullal 

Jayshree Ullal has also received many awards including E&Y's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015, Barron's World's Best CEOs in 2018 and Fortune's Top 20 Business persons in 2019.

Other Indians on the Forbes' list

1. Ulla is not the only Indian-American on the list. At rank 24 is Neerja Sethi with a net worth of USD 1 billion. Sethi cofounded IT consulting and outsourcing firm Syntel with her husband Bharat Desai in 1980 with an initial investment of just USD 2,000.

2. Neha Narkhede, co-founder of cloud company Confluent, is ranked 57th on the list. She has a net worth of USD 900 million.

3. At rank 85 is Indra Nooyi, the former chairperson and chief executive officer of PepsiCo, with a net worth of USD 320 million.

4. The 41-year-old Reshma Shetty, co-founder of Gingko Bioworks is also in the Forbes' list of America's richest self-made women with a net worth of USD 220 million.