A wise man once said, “There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women”.
Well, all of us know that the Google, Facebook and the Microsoft around the world are headed by the descendants of Adam. Actually ever thought that whenever the present generation talks about technology or say “engineering”, they only speak about Mark Zuckerberg of FACEBOOK, Sunder Pichhai of GOOGLE and Satya Nadela of Microsoft and never has one ever heard of Lisette Titre or Amanda Stiles or Lisa Earnhardt and other beautiful and highly intellectual ladies.
Yes! In this male dominated profession, there exist many charming and pretty faces that are turning heads around and more importantly, bringing about a lot of technological changes with their super awesome ENGINEERING abilities.
Follow a related post Being “I”
Here are a few of the leading women engineers:
Marissa Mayer– President & CEO | Yahoo
The current President & CEO Yahoo, Marissa Mayer is having her Bachelor and Master degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. She joined Google in 1999 as employee number 20 and was the company’s first female engineer. On July 16, 2012, Mayer was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo! Starting her career as a software engineer at Google, Mayer has reached the pinnacle of success as the President & CEO of Yahoo.
Ginni Rometty– Chairman, President and CEO | IBM
Rometty graduated as a Computer Science and Electrical Engineer from the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in 1979 With high honors. In 1981 she joined IBM as a system Engineer. Then on she has contributed the company a lot and moved the company to a new altitude of success. She is the current CEO of IBM, and the first woman to head the company.
Ursula Burns– Chairwoman and CEO | Xerox
Starting as a summer intern for Xerox in 1980, Burns did work her way from the bottom all the way to the top. The current Chairwomen and CEO of Xerox, Burns is the first African-American woman CEO to head a Fortune 500 company. She has a bachelor of science degree in Mechanical Engineering from New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering in 1980 and a master of science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University.
Kimber Lockhart– CTO |One Media Group
Lockhart holds a bachelor in science degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. Currently she is the CTO of innovative health care company One Medical Group. Previously, Kimber co-founded Increo Solutions, a document collaboration company that was acquired by Box in 2009. Kimber served Box as Senior Director of Engineering.
Lisa Su– President & CEO | AMD
Lisa has BS, MS and PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently she is holding the position of President and CEO at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a Fortune 500 technology leader. Prior to joining AMD, she spent 15+ years in the semiconductor industry in various engineering and general management roles at Freescale and IBM.
Diane Greene– Senior Vice President | Google
Greene, the current Senior Vice President for Google’s cloud businesses, was a founder and the CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. She received her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Vermont and earned a Master’s degree in Naval Architecture from MIT. Later on she earned a second master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kate Bergeron– Vice President, Hardware Engineering | Apple
After pursuing her Mechanical Engineering from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kate joined Apple in 2002 and has come a very long way from mechanical engineering in manufacturing to designing high end, user friendly mobile products and closely working with the Mac design team. She is presently in charge of manufacturing a wide range of Apple products including the latest Apple TV.
Jayshree Ullal– CEO and President | Arista Networks
Born in London and raised in New Delhi, Ullal received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from San Francisco State University and master’s degree in engineering management from Santa Clara University. Ullal started her career in AMD and served many big companies before named as the CEO & President of Arista Networks, a cloud networking company.
Lisette Titre– Art Manager | Ubisoft
If you are an avid gamer then you must have heard this name a lot of times and if you haven’t, then you are not even close to be called a gamer. Lisette holds an amazing 10 plus years of experience in video game designing and recently joined Ubisoft, the name behind the popular Assassin’s Creed as the manager of its art/computer animation department.
Tracy Chou– Software Engineer | Pinterest
If anyone has an engineering dream, then Tracy Chou is one female who is simply living it. In her late twenty’s, she is one of the females who has made quite a name for herself in the valley. Starting her career as an intern with Google and Facebook, Tracy has worked with a coveted start ups such as Quora followed by Pinterest where she still remains.
Padmasree Warrior– Board Member | Box
Warrior is a member board of Directors at Box. She is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and global business. She is the former CTO of Cisco Systems and Motorola. Padmasree holds a bachelor’s degree from IIT, Delhi and master’s degree from Cornell University both in Chemical Engineering. For her excellence in work, she has been awarded and honored from many societies.
Ruchi Sanghvi– Former VP Operations | Dropbox
Ruchi was the first female engineer of Facebook. She was one of the primary developers for News Feed in Facebook. After quitting Facebook she started her own company Cove with two other co-founder. The company was sold to Dropbox in 2012 and Sanghvi joined Dropbox as VP of Operation. She served Dropbox for two years and left in 2014. Sanghvi persued her bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Erica Lockheimer– Director of growth engineering | LinkedIn
Being the head of LinkedIn’s Technical Women Leaders initiative, a peer group for women techies at the company, Erica also is one of the few to earn a patent in LinkedIn. She has been responsible in doubling the member sign up rate and increasing total member count. Erica and her team indulge in encouraging people to join and use LinkedIn.
Christina Chen– General Manager Chief Experiences Office | Microsoft
Christina is one of the few to join Microsoft straight after college and then moving to Google for five years before being poached back to Microsoft again where she is presently leading a team that is working towards making Microsoft product much more user friendly and easy. She is currently the General Manager of the Emerging Devices Experiences team and the Chief Experiences Office in the Applications and Service Group at Microsoft.
Aparna Chennapragada– Direct of Product | Google
Aparna has her B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Madras and M.S. in Computer Science from University of Texas Austin. Later on she earned another masters’ degree in Management and Engineering from MIT. Started her career as a Software Engineer Intern at Oracle in 1998, Aparna has covered a long journey in technical world and now is the Director of Product at Google.
These are only a few influential women engineers who have made their firm impression in the field of engineering. But there are many more to it once we start reading about them.
This is a Guest Post by Pragya Sehgal
About the Author: Pragya, a Journalism and Mass Communication graduate, loves to read and write. This young lady likes to surround herself with creative people and her true passion lies in creative writing.
Surprised at finding no Indians in this elite list!!
Hey Sunita,
Thanks for your curiosity. We are sorry that we published the article in its premature stage. We have populated the list to total of 15 leading women engineers now with the inclusion of some Indians also.
The inclusion of Indians is not for your query but they actually deserve to be in the list.
Please go through the list once again.
Yes..I see them so deservedly in the list.
That’s a nice share…good to read abt women who have broken the glass ceiling !
Hey Sweta Thanks…
We have just updated the article with some more successful women engineers, a total of 15 in the list now. Please go through it