CEO and chairman of Palo Alto Networks Inc., Nikesh Arora, with a net worth of $1.5 billion, entered the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Education and early life
The Indian-American business executive, investor, and entrepreneur was born in Ghaziabad of Uttar Pradesh on February 9, 1968. He completed his schooling from The Air Force School. After graduating in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi, he completed his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Northeastern University, and Master of Science (MS) in Finance from Boston College.
Professional life
Arora began his career in 1992 with Fidelity Investments where he held various technology management and finance roles. In 2000, after stepping down from his role as vice president in Fidelity Investments, he established T-Motion, as a subsidiary within German telecommunications major Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile). Eventually, T-Motion was integrated into the core services of T-Mobile and he served as the chief marketing officer of the company's International division.
After four years with T-Mobile, he joined Google in 2004. In his decade-long career at Google, he served as president of Europe, Middle East and Africa; senior vice president; and chief business officer.
In 2012, he became the highest-paid Google executive, with a compensation package worth about $51 million in cash and stocks.
Arora had reportedly recommended that Google acquire Netflix in 2009 when its market cap was roughly $3 billion compared to its current worth of $27 billion.
After his stint with Google, he joined Japan-based investment holding company SoftBank Group Corp as its president. He struck a $250 million deal during his tenure and oversaw SoftBank's global business operations, such as its investments in Indian firms like Snapdeal, Ola, Grofers, and Housing.com.
He joined cyber security company Palo Alto Networks as CEO and chairman in June 2018. He was granted $125 million in stocks when he joined the company. As the company’s share quadrupled over the years after the boom in cyber software and a series of high-profile hacking incidents, his net worth rose to about $1.5 billion.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Arora is a rare non-founder billionaire tech CEO.