IIT Alumni Jay Chaudhry enters Top 10 Richest Indian List 2021, Earns Rs 153 Crore in a year
Last year, though many people faced difficulty to earn due to Coronavirus pandemic, it seems the case was not so for all. The 62-year-old Jay Chaudhry, an IIT Alumni from Himachal had earned hugely. And in lieu of that he has entered the top 10 list of India’s richest persons.
In a year marred by the coronavirus pandemic, Chaudhry’s estimated net worth grew by 271% last year to $13 billion, reported India Today.
The owner of the cybersecurity firm Zscaler, Mr Chaudhry has secured his place among the top 10 of wealthiest people in India, according to the latest IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich list 2021. He has earned Rs 153 crore in last one year, according to the list, reported News 18.
At present, Chaudhry and his family reportedly own 45 per cent of Nasdaq-listed Zscaler, which is currently worth $28 billion.
Chaudhry comes from a humble background. He was born in the small village of Panoh in Himachal Pradesh’s Una district. During childhood he faced problem due to lack of electricity and short supply of drinking water. His parents were small scale farmers, reports say.
Chaudhry completed his bachelor’s in technology in Electronics Engineering from IIT at the Benaras Hindu University in Varanasi. Later he shifted his base to the US in the eighties. In the US he secured a seat at The University of Cincinnati to pursue an engineering and management master’s programme.
Chaudhry worked in sales and marketing for companies like IBM, Unisys, and IQ Software for nearly 25 years. Later, he started his own company.
Initially, he started a start-up named SecureIT in 1996 for which he and his wife invested all their life savings.
Later Chaudhry founded several other companies such as – CoreHarbour, Secure IT, CipherTrust and AirDefense which were sold out. And then he founded Zscaler.
During the Corona pandemic lock down, many companies adapted the work-from-home model when Chaudhry’s company witnessed a huge rise as it specialises in enabling secure digital transformation by rethinking traditional network security.
Zscaler, which has over 5,000 clients with a quarter from the Global 2000, has over 2,600 employees and provides security as a service to leading tech companies including Microsoft, Siemens, CrowdStrike, and AWS, among others, reported India Today.
Ms Kalinga