Sridhar Vembu (born 1968) is an Indian billionaire business magnate and the founder and former

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of the

Zoho Corporation Zoho Corporation is an Indian multinational technology company that makes computer software and web-based business tools. It is best known for the online office suite offering Zoho Office Suite. The company was founded in 1996 by Sridhar V ...

. According to ''Forbes'', he is the 39th richest person in India with a net worth of $5.85 billion, as of 2024. He was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award, the

Padma Shri The Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī'', lit. 'Lotus Honour'), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. In ...

, in 2021. As per Forbes list of India’s 100 richest tycoons, dated OCTOBER 09, 2024, Sridhar Vembu & siblings are ranked 51st with a net worth of $5.8 Billion.

Early life

Vembu was born in 1968 in a middle class

Tamil Brahmin Tamil Brahmins are an ethnoreligious community of Tamil-speaking Hindu Brahmins, predominantly living in Tamil Nadu, though they number significantly in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana in addition to other regions of India. The ...

family, in a village in

Thanjavur district Thanjavur District is one of the Districts of Tamil Nadu, 38 districts of the States and territories of India, state of Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India. Its headquarters is Thanjavur (Tanjore) . The district is located in the delta of the Cauv ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras or IIT-M) is a Public university, public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the eight public Institutes of Eminence of India. As an Indian Institutes of ...

in 1989, and earned his MS and

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Electrical Engineering degrees from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

Career

Vembu launched his professional career working for

Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...

as a wireless engineer in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, before moving to the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

. He has lived in San Jose and Pleasanton. In 1996, Vembu, along with two of his brothers, founded a software development house for network equipment providers called AdventNet. The company was renamed

in 2009, focusing on providing

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike oth ...

support to

Customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategic process that organizations use to manage, analyze, and improve their interactions with customers. By leveraging data-driven insights, CRM helps businesses optimize communication, enhance cus ...

services. Vembu moved to Tenkasi, India in 2019. As of 2020, he held an 88 per cent stake in the company. Forbes estimated his net worth at USD $2.44 billion. In 2021, Sridhar Vembu was appointed to

National Security Advisory Board The National Security Council (NSC) (IAST: ''Rāṣṭrīya Surakṣā Pariṣad'') of India is an executive government body tasked with advising the prime Minister of India on matters of national security and foreign policy. It was establishe ...

. Despite being a

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since Classical antiquity, antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn (anatomy), horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unico ...

, Zoho has been completely

bootstrapped In general, bootstrapping usually refers to a self-starting process that is supposed to continue or grow without external input. Many analytical techniques are often called bootstrap methods in reference to their self-starting or self-supporting ...

by Vembu and his co-founder Tony Thomas to avoid external influence.

Social entrepreneurship

Sridhar Vembu is noted for taking software and product development functions from urban centres into rural villages in India. Specifically, his company, Zoho, established its offices in rural Mathalamparai,

Tenkasi district Tenkasi () is one of the 38 districts of Tamil Nadu, India, separated from Tirunelveli district on 22 November 2019. The Government of Tamil Nadu announced its creation on 18 July 2019. The district headquarters is at Tenkasi. Geography The ...

and in suburban Renigunta,

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. He moved from the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

to Mathalamparai at this time. In 2004, he set up Zoho Schools to provide vocational software development education to rural students as an alternative to formal university education. A statement from the company states that 15 to 20 per cent of its engineers have no college degree, but have received vocational education from Zoho Schools. In 2020, he announced a "rural school startup" focused on free primary education.

Political views

A former Zoho product marketing manager resigned in October 2018 after a dispute with Vembu over the employee's post on the company's

intranet An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in ...

discussion forum. The employee stated that Vembu was hostile to him for criticising the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS,, ) is an Indian right-wing politics, right-wing, Hindutva, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar ( ...

(RSS), a

Hindu nationalist Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of political thought, based on the native social and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" is a simplistic translation of . It is better descri ...

paramilitary organisation. In January 2020, Vembu met with criticism after he attended, as the guest of honour, a high-profile event organised by the RSS. Vembu defended his participation as a matter of his personal choice.

Honours

Vembu was awarded the 2019

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

"Entrepreneur of the Year Award" in India. He was also the recipient of the

, India's fourth highest civilian honour, in 2021. He has also been selected as CNN-News18 Indian of the Year 2022. He was also appointed to the

(NSAB) of India in 2021

References