Jayshree Ullal

Jayshree Ullal is the president, CEO, and chairperson of Arista Networks, a cloud networking company specializing in high-speed data center infrastructure. As CEO, Ullal has played a central role in Arista's deployment of 10/25/40/50/100/400/800 Gigabit Ethernet networking in data centers. She earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from San Francisco State University and a Master of Science in engineering management and leadership from Santa Clara University. Her contributions to the field have been recognized by both institutions with Distinguished Alumni Awards.

Ullal's technology career spans more than four decades, beginning with engineering roles in the semiconductor industry. She started as a senior strategic development engineer at Fairchild Semiconductor and later joined Advanced Micro Devices, where she designed high-speed memory chips for IBM and Hitachi. Ullal then became vice president of marketing at Crescendo Communications, where she contributed to the development of 100-Mbit/s Copper Distributed Data Interface products and first-generation Ethernet switching. After Cisco Systems acquired Crescendo Communications, Ullal joined Cisco and worked on the Catalyst switching business, which grew into a multibillion-dollar operation. As vice president and general manager of LAN switching in the Enterprise group, she was responsible for unified communications, IP telephony, content networking, and policy networking, and oversaw approximately 20 mergers and acquisitions in the enterprise sector. Ullal ultimately rose to senior vice president at Cisco, overseeing a $10 billion business in data center, switching, and services.

Ullal joined Arista Networks and led its transformation from a small startup to a major provider of high-speed cloud networking solutions for large enterprises and hyperscalers. Under her leadership, Arista Networks emphasized software-driven solutions, expanding rapidly in cloud computing and artificial intelligence-powered data centers. She guided Arista Networks to an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ANET. Company revenue grew from under $200 million to more than $5.7 billion, with clients such as Microsoft Azure, Meta, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud relying on Arista's high-performance, scalable switches and routing systems for hyperscale data centers. Ullal also serves as chairperson of Arista's board and has been a member of Snowflake Inc.'s board, reflecting her influence in cloud and data infrastructure.

Ullal's leadership has been recognized with numerous industry awards, including "Entrepreneur of the Year" from Ernst & Young, Barron's "World's Best CEOs," and inclusion in Fortune's "Top 20 Business Persons." She has received the "Global Indian of the Year" Award from Economic Times and has been named to the Silicon Valley Business Journal's "Silicon Valley Power 100." Forbes has also recognized her as one of the top five most influential people in the networking industry for her work at Arista Networks. Ullal is an advocate for promoting women in technology and works to create more inclusive opportunities in the industry.