Canada is home to a large, growing and diverse tech workforce, but it has a significant opportunity to more fully engage its diverse labour market to contribute to its tech workforce. Of the total make-up of the tech industry in 2019, men (7.8%) greatly outnumber women (2.1%), with their participation shares standing at 80% to the 20% for women. This pre-pandemic divide has greatly widened since, and the industry must acknowledge its lack of diversity figures.
In recognition of the top talent across North America, we wanted to celebrate the women of Asian heritage that were trailblazers in the tech sector. Our Top 10 South Asian Women in Tech hold leadership roles; are C-suite Execs, Board Members, Senior Managers. They are from diverse backgrounds, and have a personal brand and a reach with their audience that resonates with our readers. With a profile of their successful careers, personality insights and personal achievements, here are some of the awesome women leaders you need to know!
1. Farah Ali | VP, Technology Growth Strategy | Electronic Arts (EA)
Farah believes that the most important idea is not always the most revolutionary one. Often, the most important idea is the right solution for a specific entity applied at the moment of readiness. Not reinventing the wheel, just strategically reapplying it. Farah is the Vice President, Technology Growth Strategy at Electronic Arts, and previously held roles such as the CTO at FreightWeb, eBay, Microsoft. With years of experience leading cross-functional teams, Farah builds great engineering teams from the ground up while providing hands-on leadership and strategic vision. When asked what her leadership style was, Farah detailed that it remained grounded in empathy, understanding, and vulnerability. She is a founder, an advisor, a life-long learner, and strongly believes in paying it forward, armed with the values which she was raised with.
2. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy | Founder & Chairman | theBoardlist
As one of the most respected female tech executives in the Silicon Valley, Sukhinder recognized the severe lack of diversity, and channeled her activism in founding theBoardlist. She leads a curated marketplace with 36,000+ members, accelerating the conversation about diverse leadership potential and engaging CEOs and boards to take action to bring more diversity into corporate leadership, starting in the boardroom. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Sukhinder believes the biggest opportunity lies in revolutionizing our relationship with risk. She was told on her second day of work in the Valley that she was “scaring the secretaries” because she was passionate at driving change for the better. Sukhinder is an internet executive and entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience leading companies like StubHub, Google, and Amazon, and has been a Board Member and an Angel Investor at TIME’S UP, Ericsson, TripAdvisor, Urban Outfitters, StichFix, Upstart, theRealReal, and Canada Drives.
3. Meena Harris | Founder & CEO | Phenomenal
US Vice President Kamala Harris’s niece, a senior adviser on policy and communications for her aunt’s U.S. Senate race, Former President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign organizing and managing lead focused on youth-vote and grassroots fundraising, Vogue 2018 ‘Game Changer’ recipient, tech advisor and entrepreneur, a data privacy and cybersecurity attorney, Founder and CEO of Phenomenal (a 360-degree underrepresented-groups focused media company), children’s author, and a mom of two beautiful girls, Meena Harris comes from a long line of strong and ambitious women that have taken the world by storm. She was the former Head of Strategy and Leadership at Uber, Senior Policy Manager at Slack,Community Operations Manager at Facebook (Meta) , and remains a Board Member at the National Women’s Law Center. For Meena, female empowerment and activism comes with the territory of being a Harris, with boundless dedication to uplifting women because they were raised that way. It is a way of life; practice and an expectation coupled with persistence.
4. Fatima Kardar | Vice President, COO & CTA to CTO | Microsoft US
Fatima is a ‘Master Connector’; her journey from a Systems Analyst and Programmer to the VP, COO and CTA to the CTO of Microsoft, is a testament to her tenacity and expertise in understanding the market for 20+ years. An expert in recruiting, growing and retaining top diverse talent, building and fostering partner relations, architecting solutions and managing large scale teams and projects, Fatima brings together strategic perspective and operational rigor. In her most recent role, she helped drive product strategy and developer messaging for the Windows Developer Platform including partnering directly with Microsoft’s top partners (WhatsApp, Twitter, Pandora, Spotify, Beats Music, Qualcomm and others). For Fatima, the tech sector was ‘love at first sight’, and considers spending time with CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft Senior leadership, and even Bill Gates as the best part of her job.
5. Saadia Muzaffar | Founder and President | TechGirls Canada
Founder and President of TechGirls Canada, and co-founder of Tech Reset Canada, Saadia is a techpreneur, an author, a DEI advocacy specialist for responsible innovation, immigrant and BIPOC recognition in STEM. She serves on the board of Women’s Shelters Canada, and is an ambassador for GEM, a mentorship program for high school girls facing socio-economic barriers. She is on the steering committee of Toronto Open Smart Cities Forum, part of Canada Beyond 150: Policy for a diverse and inclusive future initiative, and part of Employment and Social Development Canada’s inaugural Advisory Committee on Women in the Economy: Removing Barriers to Employment. She also serves on the advisory board for the University of Guelph’s Centre for Advancing Responsible and Ethical Artificial Intelligence (CARE-AI).
6. Neha Parikh | CEO | Waze
As the CEO of Waze, an estimated 150+ million community-driven navigation app that is also a contender and subsidiary of tech giant Google since 2013, Neha Parikh was a veteran of the hospitality brand Expedia Group, as the President of Hotwire and former VP of Hotels.com. She has led her companies to unprecedented growth by revamping their business models, reshaping their products, and rebuilding the team and culture for the better. Neha’s focus on community building as the foundation of her leadership is where she draws her strength for success and values alignment. She guided Waze through tight turns as its army of users hit the roads after more than a year of pandemic lockdown.Neha was also nominated in the Forbes CEO Next 50: The Up-And-Coming Leaders Set To Revolutionize American Business list, which highlights top tech executives redefining the role and driving game-changing innovation.
7. Anjali Sud | CEO | Vimeo
With her recent return to work after the birth of her second child, this CEO is at the helm of Vimeo, one of the world’s biggest all-in-one video software solutions. Anjali’s journey as a Director at Amazon, a Board Member at Dolby Laboratories, and a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, is one to admire. Under Anjali’s leadership, Vimeo went public last year during one of the most unpredictable and tumultuous market conditions in decades. She strongly believes in ‘Innovation = Impact’ and that we cannot ring-fence innovation, for every employee is responsible for it. Vimeo has been ranked #23 on the 50 World’s Most Innovative for 2020 in the world, and ranked #1 on the 10 Most Innovative Video Companies of 2020. With the accolades rightfully attributed to her, Anjali’s choice to celebrate personal milestones in professional spaces is what makes her style of leadership stand apart. She acknowledges that there aren’t many examples of public company CEOs becoming mothers on the job and taking leave, and wanted to change that by taking the leap herself. Anjali is optimistic about the future for parents at work and removing the stigmas for a more inclusive workforce.
8. Reshma Saujani | Founder & CEO | Marshall Plan for Moms | Girls Who Code
Spearheading a movement that centers mothers in economic recovery and values labor by advocating for policies that support moms, Reshma Saujani is the Founder of Girls Who Code and the Founder/CEO of Marshall Plan for Moms. A mom of two, an author, a lifelong activist, a champion of women’s financial literacy and independence, Reshma has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and advocating for policies to support moms impacted by the pandemic. She is a Board Member for Harvard University, the International Rescue Committee, the Economic Club of New York, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Reshma also has an extensive background in law, where was also the Deputy Public Advocate for the City of New York. She was also the first Indian American woman to run for the U.S. Congress.
9. Noureen Syed | Data & AI Cloud Solution Architect Manager | Microsoft Canada
Recently promoted from Director, Commercial Market Strategy Group, Noureen currently holds the title of Data & AI Cloud Solution Architect Manager for Microsoft Canada. As a Microsoft Change Agent, Noureen focuses on assuming responsibility for promoting the value of the transformation, formulating and influencing how the transformation will happen and then guiding and supporting others through that transformation. Her continued commitment to empower every person and every organization to achieve more, has earned her recognition and led Microsoft to build impactful strategies that focus on providing the best value to customers and partners. She has led to the adoption of Microsoft Cloud, including solutions and platforms such as Azure, Microsoft 365 Collaboration, Productivity & Security, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
10. Natasha Walji | Managing Director | Google Canada
Of the titles Natasha holds, Director of Telco, Government & Tech at Google, and a member of several Board of Directors, Chief Mom Officer (CMO as she refers to it). Natasha is an inspiring leader whose core values instilled in her childhood have been at the heart of who she became. Natasha champions mentorship at every level for all, having a mentor guide her and changing the trajectory of her entire career. Her efforts as Executive Sponsor Google at Google have helped over 1,500 Canadian nonprofits succeed with Google for NonProfits. Throughout the pandemic, she spearheaded the effort at saving numerous struggling nonprofits, gaining access to free tools and resources through Google. She has remained active in serving the community for 20+ years in the areas of children’s health, public health, poverty alleviation, education, disaster relief and co-founded an organization for children with disabilities.
We hope you give these incredible leaders a follow and if you liked this post, you can also check out the feature we did on Top 10 Black Women to Follow in Tech!