In a male-dominated tech industry, not so surprisingly, a few women have managed to break the glass ceiling and make their way to the top. Some of these women started from ordinary roles and have climbed up the ladder and scaled new heights to become powerful businesswomen and CEOs running billion-dollar corporations.
Here, Nairametrics has compiled a list of the richest women in tech, based on their net worths.
Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble dating app, $1.2 billion
Whitney Wolfe Herd is the CEO and co-founder of the dating app, Bumble. She became a self-made billionaire after taking her company public on NASDAQ. She founded the dating app in 2014 after leaving Tinder with help from an early investor, the Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev, who also has a stake in Badoo. She owns a 21% stake in Bumble. She also heads Badoo. The two apps operate in 150 countries with 2.8 million paying users as of March 2021.
Jenny Just, co-founder of PEAK6 Investment, $1.5 billion
Jenny Just and her co-founder started PEAK6 Investments in 1997 with $1.5 million in seed capital as a proprietary options trading firm. Today, it’s a multibillion-dollar financial service and technology firm with an average annual return of 57%.
Her star investment, Apex Fintech Solutions, handles the back-end trading and technology for fintechs such as SoFi, Ally, eToro, and WeBull. Apex Fintech Solutions is slated to go public via a SPAC merger that values the company at $4.7 billion.
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook, $1.9 billion
Sheryl Sandberg, worth $1.8 billion, is an American business executive and philanthropist. She has served as the chief operating officer at Facebook since 2008, helping to dramatically increase the social media firm’s revenue. She is one of the most powerful women in technology. Prior to Facebook, Sheryl was vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google.
She has worked as the chief of staff for the United States Treasury Department under President Clinton, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and an economist with the World Bank. Sandberg serves on the boards of Facebook, ONE, and SurveyMonkey.
Thai Lee, President, and CEO of SHI International, $4.1 billion
Thai Lee is the CEO of SHI International, an IT provider that offers program assistance, reporting and tracking, configuration, software licensing, and information technology asset management services. SHI international which has 20,000-plus customers serves customers worldwide. including Boeing and AT&T.
When she co-founded SHI in 1989, it was a $1 million software reseller. Today, it is the US’ largest minority/woman-owned business enterprise with 2020 revenues surpassing $11 billion for the first time.
Meg Whitman, former eBay chief executive, $6.1 billion
Meg Whitman, worth $6.1 billion, is a veteran in Silicon Valley. She is most recognized for growing eBay from $5.7 million to $8 billion in sales as CEO from 1998 to 2008. She left eBay as a billionaire.
She has served as Chief Executive Officer for various billion-dollar Tech companies. She was CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 2011 to 2015, where she oversaw its split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She also serves as a board member of Procter & Gamble and General Motors.
