Rashmi Sinha is an Indian Businesswoman, entrepreneur, and scientist. She was No. 8 on the ‘Most Powerful Woman Entrepreneurs’ list by the American business magazine Fortune in 2012. She is the CEO and co-founder of SlideShare.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Rashmi Sinha was born in Lucknow, India. Rashmi completed her education at Brown University, obtaining a PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology from 1993 to 1998. Before that, she earned a Bachelor of Arts (B. A.) in Cognitive Science from the University of Allahabad. During her studies, she took computer science courses with Andy van Dam, which gave her exposure to HCI (human-computer interaction) thinking. For her postdoc, she attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she shifted her focus to human-computer interaction.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 4″
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
Family
Rashmi Sinha was born to a Sinha family in Lucknow.
Parents & Siblings
Her father and mother are from Lucknow. Rashmi Sinha has an older brother Amit Ranjan, a mechanical engineer with whom she started SlideShare. Amit Ranjan is well known for helping the Indian government with DigiLocker.
Rashmi Sinha’s parents with her children and husband Jonathan Boutelle
Rashmi Sinha with her brother Amit Ranjan and husband Jonathan Boutelle
Husband & Children
Her husband Jonathan Boutelle co-founded SlideShare with Rashmi and was its Chief Technology Officer. The couple have two sons together, twins named Vikram Boutelle and Rohan Boutelle, born in 2012.
Rashmi Sinha with her husband Jonathan Boutelle
Rashmi Sinha and Jonathan Boutelle with their sons Vikram and Rohan Boutelle
Career
Entrepreneurship
Uzanto
Rashmi Sinha started her career with academics. She worked as a researcher at the University of California Berkeley. In addition, she was an instructor at UC Berkeley’s Information School, teaching Human-Computer Interaction and Statistics. She left her life in academia to found the company Uzanto (meaning ‘user’ in Esperanto, an artificial language), which is a user experience consulting company. At first, they worked on different projects with big companies like eBay, Blue Shield of California, AAA, and Yahoo. Then, they changed their focus and started making their software. This change led to the creation of MindCanvas, an online tool that feels like a fun game, designed for conducting surveys and other user research activities.
SlideShare was co-founded by Rashmi Sinha, Jonathan Boutelle, her husband, and Amit Ranjan, her brother, with Rashmi Sinha being a prominent figure in the company’s success and leadership. It allows users to share and view presentations, documents, and professional content. People use it to share knowledge, ideas, and resources with a global audience, making it a valuable resource for professionals, educators, and businesses alike. SlideShare was officially launched on October 4th, 2006, but the idea had been conceived earlier in March-April of the same year, with work commencing in the summer. As soon as it was introduced, users quickly embraced the concept. Initially, the company was self-funded (“bootstrapped”) for about a year and a half, and in December 2007, they secured angel funding. Later, in April 2008, SlideShare received ‘Series A’ funding from Venrock. SlideShare had two offices, one in San Fransisco with ten employees and the other in Delhi with 20 employees.
The team behind SlideShare
The platform experienced rapid user growth, attracting over 50 million users per month by the time LinkedIn expressed interest in the company in 2012. SlideShare began focusing on monetization efforts in 2009 and managed to become profitable by 2012, all the while investing in continuous expansion. LinkedIn acquired SlideShare for $119 million (Rs. 640 crores) in May 2012. Rashmi Sinha, after the acquisition, led SlideShare as a unit of LinkedIn. In her role, she not only managed the SlideShare product, technology, marketing, and team but also collaborated closely with the LinkedIn leadership team to ensure alignment with the overall LinkedIn strategy.
Scientist
In 2014, once her son was diagnosed with Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (SJIA), Rashmi Sinha and Jonathan Boutelle began working on finding a cure for the same. In 2017 they founded the SJIA Foundation which is a non-profit organisation to help accelerate the work being done on SJIA.
Rashmi Sinha working for the Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Foundation that she started
Awards, Honours, Achievements
- Fast Company awarded Rashmi Sinha with the title of ‘Most Influential Women in Web 2.0’ in 2008.
- Rashmi Sinha was No. 8 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Woman Entrepreneurs list in 2012.
- Rashmi Sinha was No. 4 on The Economic Times’ list of the 20 Most Influential Global Indian Women in January 2015.
Net Worth
Her net worth for the year 2023 is estimated to be $ 12.7 million.
Favourites
Rashmi Sinha’s favourite presentation on SlideShare is a modified version of Karl Fisch’s slideshow. The original presentation by Karl Fisch explores globalization and America’s future in the 21st century, and is titled “Shift Happens”.
Facts/Trivia
- Rashmi Sinha shares her name with a cancer researcher/ an epidemiologist.
- Rashmi Sinha does not like checking her phone and answering calls. She prefers receiving an email before getting on call to discuss the matter at hand.
- Even though Rashmi Sinha has a private office, she enjoys being where the action is and prefers working with the other employees.
- Rashmi likes going on hikes.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn