From Silicon Valley to Wall Street, seven Indian American women on 2026 Forbes 50 Over 50 list

(Aug 22, 2026) Seven Indian American leaders earned recognition on the 2026 Forbes 50 Over 50 list, reflecting the breadth of Indian American leadership across technology, global finance and philanthropy. Produced by Forbes in partnership with Mika Brzezinski’s Know Your Value initiative, the sixth annual list honours 200 women across four categories, lifestyle, impact, innovation and investment. Four of the Indian American honourees appear in innovation, with one each recognised in impact, investment and lifestyle.

Komal Shah

Silicon Valley | Lifestyle

Komal Shah moved from India to the United States to study computer science at Stanford University, going on to build a career as a Silicon Valley technology executive holding positions in the executive suites of Yahoo, Oracle, and Netscape, after obtained an MBA from the Haas School of Business at Berkeley. She later stepped away from the corporate world to devote herself fully to philanthropy through Making Their Mark Foundation and art collecting. Alongside her husband, technology investor Gaurav Garg, she assembled the Shah Garg Collection, dedicated to contemporary art by women artists.

Earlier this year, an exhibition drawn from the collection, Making Their Mark, opened at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Her recognition on the lifestyle list reflects a second act built on cultural stewardship, using her technology fortune to widen the visibility of women in contemporary art.

Savita Subramanian

New York | Investment

Savita Subramanian is managing director and head of U.S. Equity and Quantitative Strategy at Bank of America, the sole Indian American name on the investment list this year. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area to parents who had immigrated from India, she grew up in a household steeped in technology, her father an engineer and her mother a software professional. Savita earned a bachelor’s degree with a double major in mathematics and philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and later completed an MBA with a concentration in finance from Columbia University.

She joined Bank of America in 2001 as a strategist with Merrill Lynch, prior to its merger with the bank, and has since become one of Wall Street’s most closely watched voices on market forecasting. In June this year, she drew wide attention after warning of too many red flags in the market and urging investors to take profits, a call that reinforced her standing at the centre of institutional investment strategy.

Ritu Narayan

Redwood City, California | Innovation

Ritu Narayan is co-founder and chief executive of Zum, a student transportation company valued at 1.7 billion dollars. Raised in India near the Himalayas, she co-founded the company with her brothers in 2015 after struggling to find dependable transport for her own children. Zum uses artificial intelligence and GPS tracking through an app that lets parents and teachers follow school buses in real time, modernising a sector long overdue for innovation. The company’s revenue reached 333 million dollars in 2025. Narayan’s journey from a personal parenting frustration to building a billion dollar enterprise illustrates how immigrant founders often turn everyday gaps into large scale infrastructure businesses.

Ritu Narayan earned her undergraduate degree in computer science (computer engineering) from the Delhi Institute of Technology, and later completed a master’s degree in management at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was also a Sloan Fellow.

Yamini Rangan

Cambridge, Massachusetts | Innovation

Yamini Rangan has served as chief executive of HubSpot, the marketing software company, since 2021. Born in India, she moved to the United States for higher studies, earning a master’s degree in computer engineering followed by an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. She arrived in the United States at 21 with little money, working as a food server at an Atlanta stadium to fund her studies. She built her career through customer-facing leadership roles at SAP, then at Workday, where she helped quadruple revenue as vice president of sales strategy and operations, before serving as chief customer officer at Dropbox and, from 2020, at HubSpot. She became HubSpot’s chief executive, succeeding co-founder Brian Halligan.

Under her leadership, HubSpot has doubled its revenue to 3.1 billion dollars and posted its first annual profit in 2025, a milestone that marked a turning point for the company’s growth strategy.

Maya Ajmera

Washington, D.C. | Innovation

Maya Ajmera is president and chief executive of the Society for Science and executive publisher of Science News, a role she has held since 2014. Born in Iowa and raised in eastern North Carolina, she is the daughter of Indian immigrants from Bihar and Rajasthan, her father a physics professor and her mother a door to door saleswoman. She once took part as a teenager in the very high school science competition she now oversees. Under her stewardship, the Society secured a 100 million dollar, ten year sponsorship for the Science Talent Search and launched an 11 million dollar STEM outreach initiative for underserved students. Science News now reaches more than 23 million readers, a reach built on her own journey from young competitor to institutional leader.

Maya Ajmera holds a bachelor’s degree in biology (and women’s studies) from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

Shubhi Rao

Austin, Texas | Innovation

Shubhi Rao founded and leads Uplevyl, a company using artificial intelligence to help organisations make better decisions around women in the workplace, covering issues such as caregiving and menopause. Before starting the company in 2021, she held leadership positions at Ford Motor, Tesco, Alphabet and Google, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a varied trajectory spanning automotive, retail, technology and public sector finance. That breadth of experience across industries now informs Uplevyl’s approach to workplace policy design. Rao’s inclusion on the innovation list reflects a growing recognition of ventures that apply data and technology to long overlooked areas of employee wellbeing and retention.

Shubhi Rao holds a B.S. in Computer Science Engineering from Michigan State University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Michigan (Ross School of Business).

Asha Jadeja Motwani

Palo Alto, California | Impact

Asha Jadeja Motwani founded the Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation and is recognised for her work supporting technology entrepreneurs while strengthening the innovation ecosystem between the United States and India. Born and raised in Ahmedabad, she arrived in the United States at 23 on a full scholarship to the University of Southern California, later transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, for a degree in urban planning, before further studies at Stanford, where she met her late husband, computer scientist Rajeev Motwani.

As a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, she has invested in more than 200 technology startups, including early stage investments in Google, PayPal, Pinterest and AppDynamics. In 2025, she established the Motwani Jadeja Institute for American Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University with a five million dollar endowment.

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