Alumni Spotlight is pleased to announce The Top 100 Harvard Alumni in Technology of 2021. The oldest higher education institution in the United States, Harvard University has been home to the nation’s best and brightest for centuries. Within all of its interdisciplinary and professional programs, the institution has focused its educational philosophy on producing leaders that are dedicated to bettering their communities and the world at large. With technology as their conduits, the alumni represented on this year’s award list have dedicated their lives and careers to that mission, working within their respective fields to develop innovative products and services to solve complex problems. Across software and hardware, life sciences, consumer services, educational platforms, digital banking, and other strategic areas, these awardees are pioneering technologies that will have a lasting global impact.

With many of these alumni acting as the chief executives of their organizations, they have also been instrumental in leading overall growth and direction through strategic investments, acquisitions, partnerships, and expansion. Serving ubiquitous industry leaders like Microsoft, Cognizant, Facebook, Amazon, Samsung, Intuit, and others, they are guiding highly effective teams, in some cases of thousands of employees, to ensure the best possible results for their customers. Even further deepening their dedication to their fields, these individuals are also committed to inspiring the next generation of technology innovators through capital investments, involvement in educational and philanthropic initiatives, donations and endowments, and other avenues to continue Harvard’s legacy of creating opportunities for individuals of all backgrounds. Please join us in honoring the accomplishments of The Top 100 Harvard Alumni in Technology of 2021.

 

1. Kumar Mahadeva
Company: Cognizant
Title: Former Chief Executive Officer

Kumar Mahadeva is the Former Chief Executive Officer of IT and tech security company Cognizant, first founding the firm in 1994 and priming it to take a position on the Fortune 500 in 2011. Since leaving leadership of Cognizant, Mahadeva took on a role as co-founder and managing partner of Indian private equity fund Kubera Partners as well as being CEO of private software and real estate investment firm Mahadeva Family Office. Additionally, Mahadeva has held executive roles at the BBC, AT&T, and McKinsey and Company. Mahadeva holds a master’s degree in physics and electrical engineering from Cambridge University.

 

2. Bill Gates
Company: Microsoft
Title: Co-Founder and Former Chief Executive Officer

Although perhaps the famed entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former wealthiest man alive needs no introduction, Bill Gates is best known as Co-Founder and Former Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft. Since 2000, Gates and his wife Melinda have devoted a great deal of time to philanthropic activities via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, personally donating nearly $50 billion to advance the causes of global health and development. Although famously Gates dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to found his first software company, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in 2007.

 

3. Meg Whitman
Company: HP (former), Quibi
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Chief Executive Officer of Quibi, Meg Whitman is renowned as an executive, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political candidate. Although Whitman made a name for herself in the 21st century in her ten years as president and CEO of eBay, growing the value of the company more than a thousandfold, she also served as CEO of HP and led a campaign for the governorship of California. In the 1980s and ‘90s, she held leadership positions with Disney, DreamWorks, Proctor & Gamble, and Hasbro. Whitman received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton University.

 

5. Susan Wojcicki
Company: YouTube
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Susan Wojcicki has been Chief Executive Officer of YouTube since 2014 and her work over the last seven years has led to her being named one of Time’s most influential people and “the most powerful woman on the internet.” Prior to her current position with YouTube, Wojcicki spent fourteen years as senior vice president of Google Adwords and AdSense, building Google’s game-changing advertising and analytics service from the ground up. Wojcicki received a master’s degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz as well as earning a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles.

 

6. Mark Zuckerberg
Company: Facebook
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

As Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, it’s hard to imagine anyone who has changed how people interact through technology more than Mark Zuckerberg. In addition to building the archetypical social media platform of our time, Zuckerberg has also spearheaded other tech initiatives designed to foster connection and innovation around the world, including the internet connectivity program Internet.org. Zuckerberg has made waves with his extensive philanthropic activities with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among other partners. Though Zuckerberg initially did not complete his degree program, dropping out to complete what would become Facebook, he was later awarded an honorary doctorate in laws from Harvard.

 

7. Andrew Jassy
Company: Amazon Web Services
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Andy Jassy has served as Chief Executive Officer of Amazon Web Services for more than two decades. Working with Jeff Bezos in the early 2000s, Jassy is responsible for building Amazon’s cloud computing platform into a titan in the world of technical infrastructure. Prior to launching Amazon Web Services, Jassy was a project manager for a collectibles company before building his own company. In addition to his achievements with Amazon, Jassy is a minority owner of the Seattle Kraken professional hockey team and is the current chair of Seattle-based charter school Rainier Prep. Jassy earned his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

 

10. Scott Cook
Company: Intuit
Title: Co-Founder

Scott Cook is recognized as Co-Founder of visionary personal finance software firm Intuit, and currently serves on the boards of eBay and Proctor & Gamble. Cook worked with Proctor & Gamble and Bain & Company before launching Intuit in Palo Alto. After completing his tenure as CEO and chairman of Intuit, Cook went on to found the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Brand and Product Management and has been listed on the Forbes 400 for his personal fortune. Cook received a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Southern California.

 

View the complete list of awardees.

 

11. Scott McNealy
Company: Sun Microsystems
Title: Co-Founder

Though he has founded a wide variety of enterprises over the course of his multi-decade career, Scott McNealy is best known as the Co-Founder of Sun Microsystems. After successfully launching the illustrious software company as part of the first wave of Silicon Valley startups, McNealy served as CEO of the company for twenty years. McNealy’s penchant for fostering innovation manifested throughout his career—in 2004 he founded free online education service Curriki, and in 2011 he established social intelligence and visualization company Wayin. Among his other achievements as a leader, McNealy is credited with advancing the implementation of the networked environment that came to dominate contemporary consumer technology.

 

12. Steve Ballmer
Company: Microsoft
Title: Co-Founder

As Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer left an indelible mark on the company he helped build with Bill Gates since 1980. Doubling profits for the company during his fourteen-year tenure as CEO, Ballmer went on to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team and launch the nonprofit transparency organization USAFacts. In addition to being one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, Ballmer and his wife are avid philanthropists, donating considerable sums of money to the University of Oregon, Harvard’s computer science department, and the Jewish National Fund.

 

14. Adam Selipsky
Company: Tableau
Title: Chief Executive Officer

For five years Adam Selipsky has served as Chief Executive Officer of Seattle-based data analytics giant Tableau, helping achieve this firm’s mission of making data more visible and accessible to the world. Among his many achievements at the helm of Tableau, Selipsky has quadrupled its value in three years and forged new partnerships with a vast array of private enterprises and government agencies. Selipsky was previously vice president of marketing, sales, and support for Amazon Web Services for more than a decade, growing the firm’s workforce more than a hundredfold, and worked as a vice president of RealNetworks and partner at Mercer Management Consulting.

 

17. Dustin Moskovitz
Company: Asana
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Dustin Moskovitz is Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of software firm Asana, a company that prides itself on helping people coordinate their work through technology. Before founding Asana, Moskovitz co-founded Facebook in 2004 in collaboration with Mark Zuckerberg and other Harvard students. Outside his responsibilities with Asana, Moskovitz sits on the boards of Victorious AI and ICONIQ Capital. He is also notable for his many philanthropic initiatives, having co-founded the Open Philanthropy Project and Good Ventures as well as serving on the boards of each of these organizations, the latter of which being responsible for more than $100 million in donations to effective altruistic causes.

 

18. Serge Saxonov
Company: 10X Genomics
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Genomicist and biotechnology guru Serge Saxonov is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 10X Genomics. 10X was created to deliver the medical and scientific advances promised by knowledge of the human genome and Saxonov has accomplished a great deal toward this goal judging by how many 10X products are in use by genetics research laboratories and pharmaceutical firms across the world. Famously, Saxonov began his career as the first employee of 23andMe, defining the genome mapping company’s initial concept and building the team that made their work possible at its inception. Saxonov received a doctorate in biomedical informatics from Stanford University.

 

20. Sheryl Sandberg
Company: Facebook
Title: Chief Operating Officer

Billionaire philanthropist and executive Sheryl Sandberg is the founder of the Lean In Foundation and has been Chief Operating Officer for Facebook since 2008, increasing its profits by significant margins multiple times over. Previously Sandberg served as vice president of global sales and operations at Google and worked with Lawrence Summers for the World Bank and the United States Treasury. Sandberg has been repeatedly recognized for her leadership accomplishments by Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Business Week, and has authored numerous books and established foundations to advance causes of feminism and women’s empowerment.

 

23. Salman Khan
Company: Khan Academy
Title: Founder

Founder of popular online learning platform Khan Academy, Salman Khan is changing the game in online education. With millions of subscribers and billions of views, Khan Academy has become the world’s premier free video educational tool and has earned its creator recognition by Time and a photo on the cover of Forbes. Before founding the company that bears his name, Khan worked as a hedge fund analyst with Connective Capital Management and Wohl Capital Management. Khan earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science and master’s degrees in engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

View the complete list of awardees.

 

 

26. Stephanie Tilenius
Company: Vida Health
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Since 2014 Stephanie Tilenius has been Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of virtual health and wellness company Vida Health, bringing personalized remote chronic condition management to individuals around the country. In addition to her duties with Vida, Tilenius holds current or former board memberships with Wish, Seagate Technology, Tradesy, and other successful startups. As a former executive in residence with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Tilenius has a record of stellar leadership in the tech worldIn addition to holding vice president positions with Google, eBay, and PayPal, as general manager of eBay Motors she doubled the company’s revenue within one year.

 

27. Will Marshall
Company: Planet
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

An industry leader in developing advanced technologies for space projects, Will Marshall is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of space exploration firm Planet Labs. Marshall has driven Planet to incredible achievements in earth-viewing satellite technology with two successful missions and two more upcoming ones. Marshall’s career in developing satellites and fusion propulsion systems has brought him to work numerous times with NASA as well as the Space Generation Advisory Council and the European Space Agency. Marshall received a master’s degree in physics from the University of Leicester and a doctorate in physics and quantum optics from the University of Oxford.

 

29. Brad Garlinghouse
Company: Ripple
Title: Chief Executive Officer

As Chief Executive Officer of global payment and finance giant Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse is working to bring the cutting-edge benefits of blockchain technology to financial institutions around the world. Ripple remains the only enterprise blockchain company working with payment providers on six continents. Garlinghouse has served in executive positions in numerous top-tier tech companies including a five-year stint as senior vice president of Yahoo and president of commercial applications at AOL. He has also held board memberships of companies as diverse as Animoto, Tonic Health, and Ancestry.com. Garlinghouse received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Kansas.

 

32. Jedidiah Yueh
Company: Delphix
Title: Founder, Executive Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Data innovator and bestselling author Jedidiah Yueh is the Founder of data infrastructure giant Delphix and continues to lead the firm as Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. A remarkable mind in the world of technology, Yueh has personally created software products that have driven more than $4 billion in sales and his book Disrupt or Die has inspired countless entrepreneurs to stay ahead of the coming automation revolution. Yueh has been honored as CEO of the Year by The San Francisco Times and is an official member of the Forbes Technology Council. His previous positions include a stint as founding CEO of Avamar.

 

33. Keller Rinaudo
Company: Zipline
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Keller Rinaudo is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of boundary-pushing logistics and supply chain firm Zipline, an entity that has made headlines and attracted top-tier investors for its work bringing blood and other medical supplies to remote parts of the world. Making use of his experience in medical research and logistics, Rinaudo has driven Zipline to devise a revolutionary delivery drone used to deliver essential medical supplies to underserved areas in Africa. In addition to his achievements as a professional rock climber, Rinaudo worked for three years in Harvard’s Bauer Genomics Lab, building cutting-edge molecular automata and becoming one of the youngest authors to publish research in Nature Biotechnology.

 

35. Will Ahmed
Company: WHOOP
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Will Ahmed has made waves in his nine-year tenure as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Boston-based consumer electronics firm WHOOP. Having raised more than $200 million in investments, WHOOP counts Fortune 500 companies and professional athletes among the users of its next-level wearable athletics technology products. Though the founding of WHOOP was Ahmed’s first professional position after graduating, he achieved a great deal in the world of finance and investment even during his studies at Harvard, holding analyst positions at Lindsay Goldberg and Allen & Company as well as a summer internship at A. J. Sloane Capital.

 

36. Manik Suri
Company: Therma
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Manik Suri is building a new level of security and reliability within the internet of things in his capacity as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of IT firm Therma. Therma and Suri work to assist food industry leaders in maintaining a consistent supply chain with the latest advances in temperature monitoring and analytics. Making good use of his expertise in his field, Suri has been a fellow of the Truman National Security Project for more than a decade, co-founded strategic and business development center The Governance Lab, and was a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Advanced Study of India. Suri received a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge.

View the complete list of awardees.

 

37. Justin Wohlstadter
Company: Wonder
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Research and fact-finding company Wonder is helmed by its Founder and Chief Executive Officer Justin Wohlstadter. An honoree of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” and named one of the hundred most influential technology investors in Europe, Wohlstadter’s scalable research firm is trusted by diverse clients including GE, Staples, and the AARP. Wohlstadter’s reputation as an innovator and entrepreneur predates his founding of Wonder; before working as director of product design for Divide, he was a founding partner at seed fund Boldstart Ventures and he founded startup A Dozen Trees and web design firm Bluevolume. Wohlstadter received a master’s degree in comparative social policy from the University of Oxford.

 

46. Eric Dunn
Company: Quicken
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Eric Dunn has spent decades turning Quicken into the world’s premier money management software and he now serves as Chief Executive Officer and Founder of the information technology services giant. Prior to his time with Quicken, Dunn was known for two decades of leadership with Quicken’s previous owner Intuit, working first as senior vice president and CFO before taking on more focused vice president positions in strategic payment initiatives and commerce solutions. Dunn also worked as an angel investor and a general partner at Cardinal Venture Capital and has held board positions with a wide array of public and private companies.

 

48. Michael Heinrich
Company: Garten (formerly Oh My Green)
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

With a stellar record as a leader and entrepreneur, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of health and wellness startup Garten (formerly Oh My Green). Michael Heinrich is changing how health is supported in the workplace. Michael has long been celebrated for his passion for sharing his expertise through his current post with leadership organization YPO and his ongoing role as an instructor and advisor at Stanford University, among others. He received degrees from Stanford, Harvard, and UC Berkeley.

 

52. Hayley Barna
Company: Birchbox
Title: Co-Founder

Currently working as a Partner for First Round Capital and a Board Director with RAB Lighting, Hayley Barna is best known as Co-Founder of Birchbox. With nearly one million active monthly members, the online beauty and wellness subscription service was hailed as a landmark achievement in changing how people shop. Included among her many honors and distinctions are Barna’s recognition as one of CNBC’s disruptors, Forbes’ 30 under 30 and 40 under 40, and FashInvest’s Fashion Tech Innovator Award. Before her role in the founding of Birchbox, Barna worked as an angel investor and advisor, as a project manager with Amazon, and as a senior associate consultant with Bain and Company.

 

54. Mike Sha
Company: SigFig
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

In the worlds of consumer banking and wealth management, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Mike Sha’s financial services firm SigFig is democratizing access to critical investment information. Backed by top venture capital firms including Bain Capital, today SigFig’s proprietary Atlas and CoPilot platforms are utilized by some of the world’s top retail banks and international wealth management institutions. Sha previously worked to foster better knowledge about investing through his co-founding of Wikinvest, building on experience he acquired over three years in management with Amazon and his time as a consultant, analyst, and engineer with Sason Corporation.

 

59. Ryan Sandler
Company: Truework
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Truework, Ryan Sandler is helping to both simplify and secure the income and employment verification process for consumers during loans, rentals, and other transactions. Established by Sandler and others in 2017, Truework has earned capital backing from Sequoia and Founder Collective, and has earned positive attention from national news outlets for its dedication to empowering employees in modern credit and identity checking procedures. In his position at Truework, Sandler makes use of a career invested in employment and interpersonal relations, with the meat of his previous work taking place as a senior product manager for LinkedIn.

 

100. Shironda A. White
Company: CauseEDU
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

A veteran in the world of philanthropy and finance, Shironda A. White is currently the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CauseEDU. Designed by White to democratize the financial planning process for university students in the United States, CauseEDU offers funding and advisement services with the help of numerous Boston-area institutions and education organizations. White is also co-founder and CEO of cupcake bakery Cupcake Therapy and was a manager for alumni relations and corporate programs at Harvard Law School for five years. White earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Spelman College and a master’s degree in business from Boston University with a focus on social impact and entrepreneurship.

View the complete list of awardees.