Arista, Inc.

NETWORKING

Jayshree Ullal: Unmatched Expertise 

A top IT professional, who constantly defied norms and adopted new strategies, has been at the helm of affairs of a large US-based  networking company. As CEO and Chairperson of Arista Inc. Jayshree Ullal has proven her mettle as a corporate leader by her unmatched expertise. A report.

Indian women have been scaling the heights in the corporate world in recent years. They are heading top banks, FMCGs, IT and armed forces, among others. Some extraordinarily talented women have reached senior and top management positions, becoming self-made billionaires in their own right. 

Jayshree V. Ullal, CEO and Chairperson of Arista Networks, Inc., US, a computer networking firm, has made it to the top proving her mettle as a corporate leader. As per media reports, Jayshree has an estimated net worth of $5.6 billion, which is based on reported shares across multiple companies, including Arista Networks, Inc. and Snowflake Inc. 

As CEO and Chairperson of Arista Inc. for over a decade, Jayshree has been responsible for Arista’s business and thought leadership in cloud networking. She is credited with making the company's business a huge success through a historic and successful IPO in June 2014.

Early Life And Career 

Jayshree was born in London in 1961 into a Hindu family of Indian origin. Her parents are Sudarajan and Nirmala Vedantham, both physicists. Jayshree moved to India as a five-year-old when her parents moved back to their native land. She studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Delhi. At an early age she showed a predilection for Mathematics and Science unlike her other classmates.

After completion of her high school, she moved to the US, where her father was transferred. She studied at San Francisco State University for her degree in Electrical Engineering. Notably, she was among the only two girls in the class of 70 students. Undeterred she continued pursuing what she loved, and went on to earn her Master’s degree in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University, California, in 1986.

Jayshree began her career at Fairchild Semiconductor as a senior strategic development engineer. She later joined Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). At AMD she designed high-speed memory chips for IBM and Hitachi. In 1988, she joined Ungermann-Bass as director of the company's internetworking business unit. Thereafter, in 1992, she joined Crescendo Communications, manufacturers of Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) network products, as vice-president (marketing). While at the company, she helped pioneer 100-Mbit/s Copper Distributed Data Interface (CDDI) products, besides working on first-generation Ethernet switching.

Cisco Operations

Jayshree joined Cisco with the acquisition of Crescendo Communications Inc. in 1993. She was associated with Cisco for 15 years and made many lasting contributions to the company. She began work on the Cisco Catalyst switching business, which grew from its beginning in 1993 to a $5-billion business in 2000. As vice-president and general manager of LAN switching in the Enterprise group, she took strategic initiatives, such as unified communications, IP telephony, content networking, and policy networking. Also, she oversaw some 20 mergers and acquisitions for Cisco. In 2005, she became senior vice-president of the Data Center, Switching and Security Technology Group. She undertook projects on the modular Nexus and Catalyst Data Center Switching and Application/Virtualization services. This business segment contributed about $15 billion in direct and indirect revenue to Cisco.

At Cisco she held numerous senior and strategic positions, and pioneered the company's foray into many new markets, including Ethernet switching, unified communications, high-end routing, optical, security, and data centre innovation. 

Heading Arista Networks Inc. 

In 2008, at the invitation of co-founders Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton Jayshree took office as CEO and President of Arista Networks, a cloud networking company located in Santa Clara, California. When she joined Arista, the company was facing profitability challenges. She turned it around rapidly and took it to a successful IPO in 2014.

Arista Networks is an industry leader in data-driven, client-to-cloud networking for large data center/AI, campus and routing environments. Its award-winning platforms deliver availability, agility, automation, analytics and security through an advanced network operating stack. The company, founded by industry leaders Andy Bechtolsheim, Ken Duda and David Cheriton, was launched in 2008. Led by Jayshree Ullal, its seasoned leadership team is globally recognized as respected leaders and visionaries, with a rich and extensive history in networking and innovation. 

Arista Acquisitions

In 2022, Arista acquired Untangle and subsequently launched the next phase of its cognitive campus vision with the introduction of Arista CUE (Cognitive Unified Edge). CUE enables commercial customers to accelerate new services and technology innovations by consolidating multiple security and networking functions into an 'edge as a service' cloud-managed solution. Subsequently, in the second half of 2022, Pluribus Networks was acquired to meet the demands of 4/5G networks, and accelerate the delivery of Cloud Unified fabrics with joint partners, such as Ericsson. Arista's acquisition of Awake Security in October 2020, a network detection and response (NDR) platform, combines AI with human expertise to autonomously hunt and respond to internal and external threats while providing triage digital forensics and incident responses across campus, data center and IoT. To bolster its deep and real-time monitoring and visibility capabilities, the company acquired Big Switch Networks in early 2020. This, along with the company's existing DANZ (Data ANalyZer) capabilities, led to the introduction of DMF (DANZ Monitoring Fabric), a network observability software across Arista switching platforms that gives customers enterprise-wide traffic visibility and contextual insights. The acquisition of Mojo Networks in 2018 provides the company with Wi-Fi solutions for campus and enterprise networks. And the acquisition of Metamako also in 2018 augmented the company's low-latency platforms. Arista's core technology and the acquisitions have transformed it into a data-driven cognitive cloud networking company that delivers its AI value through the network.

Soon after Jayshree took charge as the top executive of Arista Networks, she added her own touch of leadership to the firm. She believed in the notion that neither two CEOs nor two companies and their business models are alike. Hence, working with one’s own trademark leadership style and adopting a different approach would help the company to make rapid strides. And sure to her belief Arista Networks thrived and became a game-changer under her stewardship.

Jayshree was named by Forbes as "One of the Top Five Most Influential People in the Networking Industry" for her work at Arista Networks. She was named one of Barron's "World's Best CEOs" in 2018, and one of Fortune's "Top 20 Business Persons" in 2019.

Awards and Honours

• One of the 50 Most Powerful People in the 2005 Network World. 
• A Top Ten Executive in VMWorld 2011.
• A Woman of Influence award for Security CSOs in 2008. 
• One of the Top Women in Storage in 2007.
• Nominated as one of the 20 powerful Women to Watch in 2001 by Newsweek, and Innovator and Influencer Award by Information Week.
• First woman to be awarded the Entrepreneurial and Leadership award, sponsored by Silicon India in 1999.
• One of the seven prominent Indian-origin women in the IT industry by The Economic Times.
• Recipient of the 2013 Santa Clara University School of Engineering Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award.
• Ranked No. 2 in Top 25 Disrupters of 2014 and No. 3 in 2015 list by CRN.
• Ranked No. 9 in the 30 Most Impressive Female Engineers Alive Today list by Best Computer Science Degrees.
• EY US Entrepreneur Of The Year Award Winner 2015.
• World’s Best CEOs: Growth Leaders 2018.
• Ranked 1 on Masala’s Most Influential Asian Women in America list.
• Named in Barron’s World’s Best CEOs list in 2018 and 2019.
• No. 18 on Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year for 2019 list.
• Honoured with 8th annual Forbes’ America’s Richest Self-Made Women in 2022.

Human Value

Jayshree who constantly defied norms and adopted new strategies, strongly believes in a support system, be it family at home or colleagues at work. She is married to Vijay Ullal. They have two daughters, Adeeti and Tarini. Vijay Ullal was President and CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor from 2012 to 2014. He is currently a venture capitalist and investor. The Ullals live in Saratoga, California. Jayshree, a mother of two children, has always credited the support of her husband, Vijay Ullal, her parents, sister and her spouse for her success as a top business executive. Jayshree's daughter Adeeti is a biomedical engineer and scientist. She is currently working with Apple, Health Algorithms – Motion Technologies. Tarini, her second daughter, is pursuing a career in veterinary medicine. Jayshree's business credo is not trying to be perfect all the time, but to be realistic and able to make trade-offs.

Jayashree has created huge business entities from scratch. In a way, she is a guide-book for many when it comes to leadership. She strongly believes that girls should be encouraged to pursue Mathematics and Science in their early years. She always inspired and encouraged engineers to learn business, because it would make them comprehend technology, its needs and applications, which would transform them into professional business leaders.

According to Jayshree, she lives by three guiding principles, which should apply to both men and women. You should follow your conviction, and find your special skill or gift; create your own career opportunities and turning points; and value your human connections and create the right culture.

(Photo & Video: Courtesy Arista)

Read Nisha Katona: Culinary Impresario