Jayshree Ullal: Paving Way for Female Entrepreneurs

Jayshree Ullal: Paving Way for Female Entrepreneurs

It’s not always that you find female executives holding top positions in the business world. Jayshree Ullal is a new-age entrepreneur who has risen to the industry’s top ranks at a very young age and is considered one of the finest talents in the industry.

Jayshree was born in London on 27th March 1961 and did her schooling in New Delhi. She moved to the U.S. for her graduation. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in the electrical field from San Francisco State University. Her strong educational background, along with her innate potential, helped her climb the ladder of success at a very young age.

Early Career

After finishing her master’s, Jayshree started working with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in a key engineering position. The skills acquired at AMD helped her gain a key insight into the working of the industry. Very quickly, she was making headlines in her industry and was a talent to watch out for. She moved from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to Fairchild Semiconductor, where she held key strategic positions.

Jayshree, who’s rated consistently as one of the world’s top 50 influential people in the tech industry, never really believed she would reach the level she is. Back in her schooling days, she always had a keen interest in the engineering sector, but to think she’ll be one of the global leaders was something even she didn’t predict.

After Fairchild Semiconductor, where her talent was widely recognized, she joined Ungermann-Bass. She was appointed as the director of internetworking products, a key position at a very young age. She stayed at Ungermann-Bass for four years before joining Crescendo, which was one of the turning points in her career.

Crescendo

Crescendo is a global leadership talent management firm. Jayshree was directly recruited for the position of Vice President of Marketing. Her role at Crescendo was the perfect stepping stone to groom her for leadership roles. She stayed in the role until 1993 when Crescendo was acquired by Cisco for a whopping 93 Million $.

Cisco

It was in Cisco where Jayshree started gaining global recognition. Jayshree always had an entrepreneurial mindset, so working at Cisco was a challenging task for her initially. When Cisco acquired Crescendo, all the top executives at Crescendo had a sign-up clause for two years. Jayshree wasn’t sure if she could manage to work at a big firm for two years.

The work environment and flexibility offered by Cisco soon changed her mind. Back in 1993, when Cisco acquired Crescendo, John Morridge was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Despite being a big corporation, Cisco had a very startup-like environment. Jayshree had great mentors in John Chambers, who was the head of sales at Cisco, and Mario Mazzola, who was the direct boss of Jayshree.

Even though the contract to stay at Cisco was only for two years, Jayshree Ullal ended up staying at Cisco for 15 years. The company recognized her key managerial role, and she was given various incentives for her performance. Cisco’s revenue was around 650Million $ back when Jayshree joined. The 650Million turned into over 15Billion $. Such was her enigmatic vision and hard work. Though some part of the revenue came from external fundings, Jayshree was a key pillar in Cisco’s success.

One of the highlights at Cisco for Jayshree was the startup culture promoted. Despite being a big corporation, Cisco announced independence for their various teams. All the multiple teams worked in a mini startup zone of their own, wherein they decided the business functions. The freedom helped Jayshree take on key management positions while living her dream of being an entrepreneur with flexibility.

Jayshree Ullal stayed at Cisco for 15 years until 2008 wherein she decided to follow her dreams of being an entrepreneur and joined Arista Networks.

Arista Networks

Arista Networks is a cloud computer networking agency based out of Santa Clarita. It was founded by David Cheriton and Andy Bechtolsheim. Jayshree made global headlines with her role in the computing industry with her role at Cisco. So when Jayshree joined Arista, she was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer. Jayshree lived her startup dream at Arista since it was a young company founded the same year she joined.

Her role at Arista included starting a business from scratch. There was a lot of hard work involved. Starting a company from scratch requires sheer determination and focus. Jayshree believed in Arista’s potential of having great technology. Her experience in marketing and sales was needed to bring in new potential customers.

It was not always a smooth journey. Just like many startups come and go, Jayshree and her company had periods of struggle. There were even times when she looked back at her decision to leave a stable job to hustle as an entrepreneur. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Arista has great technology, which made them survive through all the hardships at the market.

Arista, which started as a young company, became a billion-dollar corporation, with Jayshree gaining global recognition.

Her work at Arista led Forbes to declare her one of the top self-made female entrepreneurs, which is a big feat. However, anyone in the computing industry wouldn’t be surprised. Jayshree is an extremely hard-working professional with a grand vision.

Arista vs. Cisco

Starting a new company always has potential challenges. However, one challenge Jayshree and her team weren’t prepared for was battling a big giant, Cisco. Cisco, often considered one of the pioneers in her industry, was a very strong competition. Arista, even though it specializes in the cloud computing industry, still faced resistance from Cisco. Cisco dominates the market with over 60% market share, which gives them a monopoly. It makes the chances of new startups succeeding minimal.

Jayshree, having worked at Cisco, had an advantage. Her team at Cisco helped her understand how the company functions and was groomed by top people in the industry. Jayshree still credits her role at Cisco to be one of the primary reasons for her success as an entrepreneur. The startup culture and independence provided at Cisco were one reason Jayshree had the courage and belief in Arista to succeed.

However, Cisco wasn’t happy with Jayshree starting a new company in a similar industry. Cisco believed it to be a breach of trust. Cisco filed a lawsuit claiming infringement of patents against Arista. Arista ended up settling the patent infringement with around  400million $. Four hundred million is a huge sum for a relatively new company. However, in the longer run, Jayshree’s determination and hard work have kept Arista one of the leading competitions in their industry.

Life Outside Work

It’s hard being one of the most successful entrepreneurs and balancing work and life outside work. Jayshree sometimes regrets not spending enough time with her family; however, her family’s support system has never made her doubt herself.

To achieve a healthy work-life balance is not particularly easy. Especially when you’re running your startup where you need to put days and weeks worth of effort without taking a break. Jayshree still tries her best to maintain a healthy work-life balance and prioritizes taking out time for her family without fail. Sharing a meal with her family is one of the essential things she does without fail.

Female Entrepreneurship

Despite there being a huge advancement in entrepreneurship, it’s still considered a man’s field. Various reasons are owing to this, most being societal perception. Running a business takes a lot of time and effort. Even after putting in your maximum effort, there’s no guarantee of success. Females traditionally are expected to manage the family and children, which dissuades more women from entrepreneurship. However, business women like Jayshree are a fine example that if you work hard and believe in yourself, you can achieve success with the sky being the limit.

Another significant reason female entrepreneurs are not widely common is the disparity rate in education. Most STEM jobs are dominated by males. It’s the education that later leads to networking and landing positions as top executives with big corporations. Jayshree only had one other female batchmate in her class of 100. A disparity at the educational level has a cascading effect on future jobs.

However, despite being in a male-dominated industry, Jayshree never faced any bouts of sexism and was respected by everyone in the industry. Her sheer hard work and determination led her to become one of the finest female entrepreneurs of this generation.

Personal Life

Jayshree married Vijay Ullal, the president of Fairchild, a successful leader in the semiconductor industry. Vijay and Jayshree have been married for over 30 years and live in California. Jayshree and Vijay have two daughters. Her eldest daughter finished her Ph.D. from Harvard, specializing in Biomedical Engineering. Her young daughter has a keen affection for animals and is pursuing a DVM (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) from UC Davis.

Jayshree quotes her family to be her biggest pillar of support. Her daughters are inspired by their mother and want to imbibe the hard work displayed by Jayshree in their life.

Message to Female Entrepreneurs

Jayshree is a big role model for Female Entrepreneurs. In an industry dominated by males, Jayshree Ullal stands tall with her determination and vision of being the CEO of a billion-dollar corporation. Jayshree always advises young women to find and hone their passion. Jayshree believes that hard work and determination to stick through tough times will always reward one in life.