International Women’s Day: Women who made it to the top in the tech world

March 8 is celebrated as the International Women's Day all over the world. Women have moved forward in every field of business, be it technology, journalism, business, engineering, they have excelled in every sector. Here's a list of 8 successful women who have gone a long way in the technology world, thus making the society realise that it's time to consider men and women as equal.

Sheryl Kara Sandberg

• Designation:  Chief Operating Officer of Facebook
• Age: 45 years

?

Sheryl Kara Sandberg is the first woman leader of Facebook, who was elected by Facebook's board of directors. In 1991, she completed her graduation from Harvard College. Sandberg was also awarded the 'John H William Prize' for being the top-graduating student in Economics. In a span of few years, she even opened an organisation named 'Women in Economics and Government'.

Sandberg served as Chief of Staff to the United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers under President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 2001. Being appointed as the Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations of Google in 2001, she was incharge of the online sales of Google. In 2008, Facebook announced Sheryl Kara Sandberg as the COO of Facebook. Sandberg manages the business operations of Facebook - sales, marketing, human resources, public policy and communications.

Virginia Marie 'Ginni' Rometty

• Designation: Chairwoman and CEO of IBM
• Age: 57 years

?

In 1979, Virginia Marie 'Ginni' Rometty completed her graduation from Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University. After working for two years in the General Motors Institute, Ginni Rometty was appointed as an engineer at IBM's in its Detroit branch. By 2009, she was appointed as the senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy for IBM.

Ginni Rometty has also been successful for the growth of IBM's cloud computing and analytics businesses. As she was responsible for the expansion of IBM in the buisiness and technology sector, Ginni Rometty was appointed as the president and CEO of IBM in 2011.

Ursula Burns

• Designation: CEO and Chairwoman of Xerox
• Age: 56 years

Ursula Burns completed her BSC in Mechanical Engineering from New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering. In 1980, she even completed the masters degree of science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University.

Ursula Burns started her career by opting for an internship in Xerox. As a fresher, she was responsible for the product development of Xerox. Wayland Hicks, a senior executive at Xerox, was impressed by her working pattern and appointed her as his executive assistan in 1990. Due to the contiuous business expansion, the company then named Ursula Burns as the vice president for Xerox's global manufacturing sector. At present, she is also the board director of the American Express Corporation and Exxon Mobil Corporation.

Padmasree Warrior

• Designation: Chief Technology and Strategy Officer of Cisco Systems

In 1982, Padmasree Warrior completed her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Later, she also obtained a master's degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University.

From 1984 to 2007,  Padmasree Warrior continued working as the Corporate Vice-President and General Manager of Motorola's Energy Systems Group, and Corporate Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer in its Semiconductor Products Sector. Warrior was appointed as the CTO of Mootorola in 2003. During her tenure as a CTO of Motorola the company was awarded the 2004 National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States.

Later in 2007, Padmasree Warrior was appointed as the CTO of Cisco Systems. She has been named as one of the four rising stars in the Most Powerful Women list of Fortune Magazine.

Cher Wang

• Designation: Co-founder and chairperson at HTC Corporation
• Age: 56 years

After completing her schooling at The College Preparatory School, she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California Berkeley in 1981.  Along with other co-workers , Wang founded VIA in 1987 and HTC in 1997.

In August 2012, Wang was named #56 on Forbes' list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. And in 2014, she was listed as the 54th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.

Marissa Ann Mayer

• Designation: President and CEO of Yahoo!
• Age: 39 years

Marissa Ann Mayer was the first female engineer at Google in 1999. She started off with web coding and designing of Google search homepage. Due to her skills in attention to detail, she was appointed as the Director of Consumer Web products.  To encourage teenagers and welcome creative ideas on board, Mayer introduced the Associate Product Manager (APM) program.  Through this program, Mayer selects a team of junior employees for a two-year training session.

In 2012, Marissa Ann Mayer joined Yahoo! and made two major changes in the policies. To enable better working conditions at Yahoo!, she introduced an online complaint program – PB&J. Yahoo! Employees can register their complaints online. If the complaint receives more than 50 votes, the system automatically investigates on the same. In 2013, She also changed the maternity leave policy at Yahoo! Mayer allowed pregnant women to stay at home for a longer period and even sent out a cash bonus to parents.

Margaret Cushing Whitman

• Designation: Chairwoman, President and CEO of at HP
• Age: 56 years

In 1979, Whitman completed her MBA from Harvard Business School. In 1989, Margaret Whitman became the vice president of strategic planning at The Walt Disney Company.  She even worked at the Stride Rite Corporation, before becoming president and CEO of Florists' Transworld Delivery in 1995.

In 1998, She joined eBay and recruited 15,000 employees and helped the company earn $8 billion in annual revenue by 2008. She built a new executive team to improvise on the marketing strategies of eBay. Around 35,000 sub-business categories were formed by her on board.

She also worked at Goldman Sachs in October 2001, but resigned in December 2002. In January 2011, Whitman joined Hewlett-Packard's board of directors.  Within few months, she acquired the position of a CEO at HP, thus expanding the PC business of the company.

Susan Diane Wojcicki

Designation: CEO of YouTube

Age: 46 years

After completing her graduation in History and Literature at Harvard in 1990, Susan Diane Wojcicki completed her Masters in Economics from the University of California. Later on, she joined as a marketing executive at Intel. Susan Diane Wojcicki was also responsible for the marketing of Google Doodle in the early stage of her career.

She even created strategies for AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick, and Google Analytics. It was Susan Diane Wojcicki who recommended the Google board to purchase YouTube and made it a success! In February 2014, Susan Diane Wojcicki became the head of YouTube.

Source: Twitter, Facebook, MensXP, Rediff.com