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Jayashree Ullal, Neerja Sethi on Forbes' richest self-made women list
Jayshree Ullal ranked seventh and Neerja Sethi 32nd in Forbes' inaugural ranking of America's self-made women billionaires.
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Malvika Choudhary - Wed, 10, Jun 2026
- 17:52 EDT
- 51
Jayashree Ullal/ Neerja Sethi / Wikipedia/ Indiaspora
Forbes has named two Indian American business leaders, Jayshree Ullal and Neerja Sethi, among the wealthiest self-made women in the United States.
Jayshree Ullal, president and chief executive officer of Arista Networks, ranked seventh on the list. Forbes said the publicly traded computer networking company generated $9 billion in revenue in 2024, nearly 30 percent higher than the previous year.
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The 65-year-old has led Arista since 2008 and joined the company when it had no revenue and fewer than 50 employees. She owns about 3 percent of Arista's stock, some of which is earmarked for her two children, niece and nephew.
Prior to Arista, she held leadership roles at Cisco Systems, Advanced Micro Devices and Fairchild Semiconductor. She also serves on the board of cloud computing company Snowflake.
"As human beings we all want to do a good job, be acknowledged and crave that appreciation. Treat your peers and team respectfully, cultivate their inner strengths and harness their full potential," Ullal said in comments cited by Forbes.
Forbes ranked Ullal No. 7 on its 2026 list of America's Richest Self-Made Women and No. 730 on its global billionaires list.
Neerja Sethi was ranked 32nd with an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion. Sethi co-founded information technology consulting and outsourcing firm Syntel with her husband, Bharat Desai, in 1980.
According to Forbes, the couple started the company from their apartment in Troy, Michigan, with an initial investment of $2,000. Syntel went public in 1997 and was acquired by French information technology firm Atos SE for $3.4 billion in 2018. Sethi is estimated to have received about $510 million from the sale of her stake.
Sethi served as an executive at Syntel from its founding until its sale in 2018. Forbes said she and Desai met in the United States while working for Tata Consultancy Services.
The 71-year-old entrepreneur was ranked No. 32 on Forbes' 2026 list of America's Richest Self-Made Women and No. 3,332 on its global billionaires ranking.
In May 2025, she and Desai joined the Giving Pledge, committing to donate at least half of their wealth to charitable causes.
The publication's inaugural list focused solely on self-made women billionaires has identified 43 women with fortunes surpassing $1 billion, an increase from 38 the previous year, as businesses in sectors such as technology, artificial intelligence, finance, and entertainment experienced significant growth.
Discover more at New India Abroad.
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