March is celebrated as Women’s History Month with the objective of giving women equal access to jobs and education. The number of women leading big companies has also reached a record high in the past years. To celebrate women and their achievements, we look at some of the companies around the world led by women.
1. Bumble | Whitney Wolfe Herd
The famous dating app, Bumble, was founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in December 2014. Whitney worked as a VP of Marketing at Tinder but left it due to sexual discrimination and harassment and started Bumble, a company with female-first approach, shortly after.
Whitney is leading Bumble as the Founder and CEO of the company. Bumble launched its IPO in February 2021 and raised $2.2 billion, with a valuation of over $7 billion.
2. YouTube | Susan Wojcicki
The second-most visited website, YouTube, was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in October 2006. Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up Google’s first office in Susan Wojcicki’s garage.
Susan Wojcicki became the first marketing manager of Google in 1999. She became the CEO of YouTube in 2014 and is leading YouTube ever since.
3. Nykaa | Falguni Nayar
Falguni Nayar joined Kotak Mahindra Group in 1993 and worked there for 19 years. She became the Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Capital in 2005 and exited in 2012, and founded Nykaa, a beauty and lifestyle company.
Falguni Nayar started Nykaa with $2 million of her own money and converted it into a $13 billion company post IPO in November 2021.
4. Biocon Limited | Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Biocon Limited is an Indian biopharmaceutical company based in Bangalore. Biocon Limited was founded by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw in 1978 with just ₹10,000 initial capital, made it a unicorn and is set to launch its IPO in next two years.
5. Facebook/Meta | Sheryl Sandberg
Facebook, or Meta, is led by Sheryl Sandberg, who serves as its Chief Operating Officer since 2008. Under her supervision, Facebook’s revenue has grown many folds. Sheryl Sandberg had the vision of positioning Facebook as a platform for small business advertising, which increased its ad revenue to $84.2 billion.
6. Bharat Biotech | Suchitra Ella
Bharat Biotech was founded by Suchitra Ella and her husband Krishna Ella in 1996. While Krishna Ella handled the scientific aspects of the company, Suchitra Ella worked behind the scenes and manages finance, marketing and business development, etc. Bharat Biotech gained the limelight with the launch of Covaxin, the covid vaccine, to fight the pandemic.
7. General Motors | Mary Barra
General Motors is an automotive manufacturing corporation founded in 1908. Marry Barra was appointed as the CEO of General Motors in January 2014 and is the first female CEO of a ‘Big Three’ automaker in the US. With the onset of the pandemic, Mary Barra shifted GM’s production lines to help Ventec Life Systems make critically-needed ventilators, which goes on to show her mettle.
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