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Seven Indian Americans named to Forbes 50 under 50 list
The list is divided into four categories—Lifestyle, Impact, Innovation, and Investment.
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Top (L-R): Geeta Mehta, Reshma Kewalramani, Jyotika Virmani; Bottom (L-R): Avantika Daing, Sonal Desai, Seema Hingorani, Gunjan Kedia. / LinkedIn & X
Forbes has unveiled its fourth annual "50 Over 50" list in collaboration with Know Your Value and Mika Brzezinski. Notably, this year's list includes seven Indian American women recognised under four categories—lifestyle, impact, innovation, and investment.
Geeta Mehta, co-founder and president of Asia Initiatives, was highlighted in the Impact category. In 2000, architect and urban planner Mehta founded Asia Initiatives and implemented an innovative concept. Drawing inspiration from carbon credits and airline loyalty programs, Mehta and her organization introduced social capital credits (SoCCs) to empower individuals to rise out of poverty.
SoCCs are earned through community contributions, such as planting trees or repairing roads. These credits can then be exchanged for services like digital or financial skills training, healthcare, or low-interest loans. This unique form of currency is now in use in India, Ghana, Kenya, Taiwan, and the U.S.
Reshma Kewalramani, featured in the Innovation category, made history as the first woman to lead a top-tier biotech company in the U.S. when she became CEO of Vertex in 2020. She had joined the Boston-based company three years earlier as its chief medical officer.
Last year, Kewalramani became one of the few biopharma CEOs whose total compensation exceeded $20 million. Under her leadership, Vertex has garnered praise for developing Casgevy, a treatment for sickle cell disease using CRISPR gene-editing technology.
Jyotika Virmani, also featured in the Innovation category, became the executive director of the non-profit Schmidt Ocean Institute as COVID-19 began spreading in the U.S.
She played a crucial role in ensuring that scientists and marine technology developers, who utilize the institute's resources in exchange for making their data and discoveries publicly available, could continue their work. One of the Institute's most significant recent discoveries was a 20-million-year-old Australian coral reef that is taller than the Eiffel Tower. In 2024, Virmani was appointed to the board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Ocean Studies Board.
Avantika Daing, highlighted in the Investment category, played a key role in building a portfolio of unicorns in frontier technology and medical breakthrough companies that are on the path to IPOs. As the founding partner of Plum Alley Ventures, Daing is now focusing on investing in both women founders and female fund managers in tech sectors.
She is addressing a significant challenge: less than 1 percent of IPOs each year are by female-founded or co-founded tech companies. To tackle this, the firm is launching 10 funds, each managed by female experts in specific technology sectors.
Sonal Desai, featured in the Investment category, manages over $200 billion in assets and is a member of Franklin Resources' Executive Committee, a select group of leaders who shape the firm’s overall strategy. Since taking on her current role in 2018, Desai has been responsible for guiding the macroeconomic direction of the Franklin Templeton Fixed Income group.
With a Ph.D. in economics, her career began as an assistant economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh before she transitioned to the IMF and later advanced to leadership roles in the private sector.
Seema Hingorani, also highlighted in the Investment category, founded Girls Who Invest (GWI) in 2015 after leaving her position as chief investment officer of New York City’s $160 billion pension fund. GWI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the presence of women and gender non-binary individuals in the financial industry through specialized training and paid internships at prestigious institutions like The World Bank Treasury.
Hingorani manages GWI alongside her senior leadership role at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where she has worked since 2019.
Gunjan Kedia, featured in the Investment category, was appointed president of U.S. Bancorp in May 2024, taking on a pivotal leadership role in a company with nearly 70,000 employees and $680 billion in assets. Kedia has been with U.S. Bank for seven years and was promoted to president of its parent company after successfully merging two major business lines while serving as vice chair of the division overseeing wealth, corporate, commercial, and institutional banking.
Before joining U.S. Bank, she held leadership positions at PwC, McKinsey, BNY Mellon, and State Street. Originally from India, Kedia was one of the few female students at the Delhi School of Engineering.
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