Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo

First up is Anjali Sud, who was appointed to CEO in July 2017, after serving as General Manager and head of marketing just after 3 years of being at Vimeo. Her main impact was changing Vimeo from being solely a direct Youtube competitor to a software company that served its video creators instead. She wanted to pivot away from simply being a viewing and streaming platform and adopt a video SaaS or software for business model instead - similar to Slack and Dropbox, but for video.

Joining back in 2014 as head of marketing, she developed the point of view that there was no way Vimeo could compete with Netflix as in original content, as they did not have the 17 billion dollars to do so. But she kept in mind that Vimeo has always catered to filmmakers and professional video creators and thus wanted to pivot to become a vital resource and tool for those businesses.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Anjali pivoted Vimeo, read this article by The Verge.

Hailing from Punjab with immigrant parents, we definitely think she is killing it in her role. Excited to see what’s in store for her next!

Amrapali Gan, CEO of Only Fans

In December of 2021, Amrapali Gan was appointed CEO of Only Fans, after only a little over 1 year of operating as chief of marketing & communications. She took over after Tim Stokely stepped down and was vital in ensuring Only Fans still provided the explicit content it was known for and can credit its success for.

Amrapali was definitely an unusual choice to lead this tech unicorn - a woman of color in a space traditionally run by white men, leading a company that often works with women who are disenfranchised by traditional industry structures. However, she herself comes from an unusual background. Originally from Mumbai, Amrapali has worked in the cannabis industry, as the VP of Cannabis Cage, which proves she has always been against the grain when it comes to South Asian women, especially who are from India.

If you’re interested in learning more about the app directly from Amrapali herself, check out this Times interview.

It is quite refreshing to not only see South Asian female leaders in tech, but also the adult industry. Amrapali is the face of an app that is changing the scene of sex work and giving power back to sex workers and that is the kind of representation we love to see.

Leena Nair, CEO of Chanel

A South Asian woman from Kohlapur, India as the CEO of the world’s most notable luxury brand is something to be screaming from the rooftops. Chanel embodies the classic, vintage American dream and the visuals of pale skin, blonde or brunette hair and red lips more often than not, come to mind when thinking of this couture house.

Previously serving as the Chief Human Resource Officer of Unilever, Leena was appointed CEO of Chanel in December of 2021. This move came across as unexpected, but understandable as most luxury brands are renewing their C-Suites with leaders outside of the industry, in order to provide strong corporate experience, since luxury is at the end of the day, consumer goods.

Leena being a South Asian woman also helps solidify the brand as a global company who implements diversity in all aspects of its business - including management. Her presence will also open up the brand to a more diverse consumer base, which all luxury brands should make an effort to do.

To learn more about Leena’s appointment as CEO, read this article by SHRM.

A fun fact about Leena is that she originally went to school to become an engineer in Sangli, India. However, her professor told her that she would make a “lousy engineer” but would be good at management since she “likes people”. She heeded his advice and enrolled in an MBA program despite her parents pushback. Leena is currently 53 years old so for her to be such a trailblazer from a young age during a time and place that was very hard for women to be so, is so inspiring!

Baiju Prafulkumar Bhatt, Co-Founder of Robinhood

Baiju Bhatt co-founded Robin Hood with Vladmir Tenev, who he met while they were in Stanford. The idea of Robinhood stemmed from witnessing the issues within the financial industry during the 2011 protests of Occupy Wall Street. In their eyes, the stock market in the US is one of the greatest sources of wealth creation, but felt it was out of reach for people for so long.

Born in 1984 to Gujrati parents, I think it is nice to know that a South Asian views money through a different lens than what we are taught. He went to school and got his degree - a bachelor’s in physics and masters in mathematics from Stanford - where he would be guaranteed a good job and stable financial situation. However, he realized that investing is a powerful wealth accumulating resource that everyone should have access to - regardless of what degree they do or do not have.

In recent news, Baju donated $500,000 to Grameen America, a microfinance organization based in Oakland, CA which aims to improve economic mobility by providing low-income women entrepreneurs with affordable loan capital. To learn more about the donation and Grameen America’s work, read here.

Manish Chandra, CEO of Poshmark

Manish Chandra founded Poshmark in his garage back in 2011. Before Poshmark, he founded Kaboodle, a social shopping company, where Poshmark’s future CTO Gautum Golwala and future SVP of engineering Chetan Pungaliy both worked. After selling Kaboodle to Hearst in 2007, Chandra moved into the fashion industry, with co-founder Tracy Sun being brought in as the fashion expert.

Initially, Chandra was unsure if he was the man to start a fashion company, but with the birth of Instagram and the iphone 4 in 2010, he was inspired to do something with this new found tech since he believed these would have large impacts on the future of mobile fashion.

Chandra has stated that his parents had differing influences on him. His mother was hard driven and a source of his ambition while his father was responsible in instilling affection and open mindedness. Chandra’s father encouraged him and his brothers to live life with no boundaries, which is not always the case with South Asian parents from the older generations.

To learn more about Chandra’s influence and Poshmark, read here.

Apoorva Mehta, Founder of Instacart

Apoorva Mehta was born in India but moved to Canada at the age of 14. He started as a design engineer at Blackberry before joining Amazon as a supply chain engineer in 2008. Then in 2010, he left Amazon and moved to San Francisco where he would launch 20 startups that all failed. However, in 2012, he founded Instacart which proved to be the only startup that needed to succeed.

Apoorva lived in San Francisco where he had no car. He also loved to cook but couldn’t get all the groceries he wanted within his neighborhood. It was also 2012 where everyone was doing everything online so he coded a crude version of the app, tested it himself and pursued making Instacart a reality for everyone. By 33, he was a billionaire.

Read more about his journey and how Instacart came to be here.

Niraj Shah, Co-founder of Wayfair

Nirah Shah co-founded Wayfair with in 2002, with Steve Conine, his classmate from Cornell. From a young age, entrepreneurship was instilled by his family, with his first ventures being lawn mowing and newspaper delivery in his hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Originally, the duo sold only entertainment furniture under the domain of racksandstands.com. However, hile Niraj understood that this was a niche market, he also realized there was a high demand for a single online shopping website. Then in December 2002, the company had made about $250,000 in sales and grew to be one of the largest online sellers of entertainment furniture. This growth led them to be what Wayfair is today, by expanding into selling all types of furniture.

To learn more about Niraj’s views of business that helped make Wayfair what is it, watch his fireside chat with Center for Digital Strategies.