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This article was first published 10 years ago

The 10 most influential women in technology

Last updated on: August 16, 2013 14:19 IST

Image: Yahoo! Chief Executive Marissa Mayer.
Photographs: Courtesy, Brigitte Lacombe

Women may not have founded the current-day tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Oracle, but they surely have helped to make these firms successful.

Let’s take a look at women who helped to shaped up some of the most successful tech companies in the world.

Source: Time magazine

Marissa Mayer

Rank: 1

Company: Yahoo

Designation: Chief Executive Officer

She has been a Google veteran and has worked with the tech giant for over 13 years before joining Yahoo.

She was the twentieth employee to join Google in 1999 and was involved in development of products such as Google Search, Google Images, Google News and Gmail.

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Sheryl Kara Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, arrives at a state dinner in honour of the state visit of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, at the White House in Washington.
Photographs: Yuri Gripas/Reuters

Sheryl Sandberg

Rank: 2

Company: Facebook

Designation: Chief Operating Officer

She has a vast experience at top-notch firms and has also worked with Google as the Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations.

She started her career with McKinsey & Company and has also served as chief of staff for the United States Secretary of the Treasury.

Mark Zuckerberg personally hired Sandberg after meeting her at a party.   

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Virginia Rometty.
Photographs: Asa Mathat/Wikimedia Commons

Virginia Rometty

Rank: 3

Company: IBM

Designation: Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer

She walked into IBM as a systems engineer and 20 years later she sits at the helm. In this period, Rometty helped the company to grow by getting into cloud computing and analytics business.

It was her that led IBM’s purchase of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting for $3.5 billion in 2002.

She regularly features in ‘most powerful’ and ‘most influential’ lists.

Tags: IBM , Rometty

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Meg Whitman.
Photographs: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Meg Whitman

Rank: 4

Company: Hewlett-Packard

Designation: Chief Executive Officer

She has an ideal resume. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, have worked with The Walt Disney company, DreamWorks, Procter & Gamble, and eBay.

When she joined eBay the annual revenue was just $4 million and the company had 30 employees. Under her leadership, ten years later, the company had annual revenues of $8 billion and employee strength of 15,000.

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Susan Wojcicki.
Photographs: Courtesy, Google

Susan Wojcicki

Rank: 5

Company: Google

Designation: Senior Vice President, Ads & Commerce

In the initial years, Google operated out of Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park. She was the 16th employee of the company.

Currently, she leads all of Google's ad products - AdWords and AdSense, Analytics and Double…

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Mary Meeker
Photographs: Liang Wu/Wikimedia Commons

Mary Meeker

Rank: 6

Company: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Designation: Partner

She has been one of the most successful tech analysts ever and is known as the ‘Queen of the Net’.

Meeker was among the first people to realise the power internet holds and the way it will transform communications and business.

While working as an analyst with Morgan Stanley, Meeker published a report on internet and its future along with colleague Chris DePuy. It was a landmark report that instantly became the bible for investor in the Dot com boom era.

Over the years, Morgan Stanley published similar landmark reports led by Meeker on online advertising, e-commerce, evolution of search, the Internet in China, and the mobile Internet.

She has also served as the lead manager in Google’s initial public offering.

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Theresia Gouw Ranzetta.
Photographs: Courtesy, Accel Partners

Theresia Gouw Ranzetta

Rank: 7

Company: Accel Partners

Designation: Partner

She is the rising star of Accel partners, who has a keen eye on spotting the next big technology company. She’s responsible for Accel’s investment in AdECN, CRS Retail Systems, Interlace Systems, Imperva, Kosmix, and Zimbra.

She also had a stint with Walmart’s investment team and Bain & Company.

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Safra A. Catz.
Photographs: Ilan Costica/Wikimedia Commons

Safra A. Catz

Rank: 8

Company: Oracle Corporation

Designation: President, member of the Board of Directors, and Chief Financial Officer

In her 14-year tenure at Oracle, Catz has overseen many mega deals including the purchase of human-resources software company Taleo. But her biggest one was $10.3 billion takeover of software rival PeopleSoft.

She has also worked as a banker at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

She regularly features in ‘most powerful women’ and ‘most influential women’ lists.

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Esther Dyson.
Photographs: James Duncan Davidson/Wikimedia Commons

Esther Dyson

Rank: 9

Designation: NA

Company: NA

She is an angel investor in many start ups including Airship Ventures, Evernote, Meetup, Voxiva, XCOR Aerospace and Yandex.

She started her career as a journalist and then became an ace Wall Street technology analyst.

After her stint at Forbes magazine, Dyson joined Oppenheimer as tech analyst and then moved to Rosen Research. In 1983, she bought her employer, Rosen Research, and renamed it as EDventure Holdings. The company was later acquired by CNET.

The 10 most influential women in technology

Image: Kara Swisher.
Photographs: Courtesy, AllThingsD

Kara Swisher

Rank: 10

Company: AllThingsD

Designation: Co-Executive Editor

She has been cited as the ‘top reporter in Silicon Valley’ and ‘most influential reporter covering technology’. She started her career with The Wall Street Journal in 1997.

Currently, she co-produces and co-hosts a major high-tech conference called D: All Things Digital. This conference has seen interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and many other leading players in the tech and media industries.

Swisher is married to Google executive Megan Smith.