Rashmi Sinha is an Indian Businesswoman, entrepreneur, and scientist. She is the CEO and co-founder of SlideShare. In 2008, Rashmi was named one of the World’s Top 10 Women Influencers in Web 2.0 by Fast Company. She was No. 8 on the ‘Most Powerful Woman Entrepreneurs’ list by the American business magazine Fortune in 2012. She is the CEO and co-founder of SlideShare.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Rashmi Sinha was born in Lucknow, India. Rashmi completed her formal education at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, where she pursued a PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology from 1993 to 1998. Before that, she earned a Bachelor of Arts (B. A.) in Cognitive Science from the University of Allahabad. During her studies, she took computer science courses with Andy van Dam, which gave her exposure to HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) thinking. For her postdoc, she attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied human-computer interaction. [1]LinkedIn
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 4″
Weight (approx.): 55 kg
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
Family
Parents & Siblings
Her father and mother are from Lucknow. Rashmi Sinha has an older brother Amit Ranjan, a mechanical engineer with whom she started SlideShare. Amit Ranjan is well known for helping the Indian government with DigiLocker.
Rashmi Sinha’s parents with her children and husband Jonathan Boutelle
Rashmi Sinha with her brother Amit Ranjan and husband Jonathan Boutelle
Husband & Children
Her husband, Jonathan Boutelle, co-founded SlideShare with Rashmi and was its Chief Technology Officer. The couple has two sons together, twins named Vikram Boutelle and Rohan Boutelle, born in 2012.
Rashmi Sinha with her husband Jonathan Boutelle
Rashmi Sinha and Jonathan Boutelle with their sons Vikram and Rohan Boutelle
Career
Entrepreneur
Uzanto
Rashmi Sinha started her career with academics. She worked as a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, she was an instructor at UC Berkeley’s Information School, teaching Human-Computer Interaction and Statistics from 1999 to 2001. In April 2003, she left her job in academia to found the company Uzanto (meaning ‘user’ in Esperanto, an artificial language), which is a user experience consulting company. At first, the company worked on different projects with big companies like eBay, Blue Shield of California, AAA, and Yahoo. Then, the company changed their focus and started making their software. This change led to the creation of MindCanvas, an online tool that is designed for conducting surveys and other user research activities. Rashmi worked at Uzanto until October 2006.
SlideShare
SlideShare was co-founded by Rashmi Sinha, Jonathan Boutelle, her husband, and Amit Ranjan on 4 October 2006. It allows users to share and view presentations, documents, and professional content. People use it to share knowledge, ideas, and resources with a global audience, making it a valuable resource for professionals, educators, and businesses alike. Even though SlideShare was officially launched in October 2006, its idea had been conceived earlier in March-April of the same year, with work commencing in the summer. As soon as it was introduced, users quickly embraced the concept. Initially, the company was self-funded (“bootstrapped”) for about a year and a half, and in December 2007, they secured angel funding. In April 2008, SlideShare received ‘Series A’ funding from Venrock. SlideShare had two offices, one in San Fransisco with ten employees and the other in Delhi with 20 employees.
The team behind SlideShare
The platform experienced rapid user growth, attracting over 50 million users per month by the time LinkedIn expressed interest in the company in 2012. SlideShare began focusing on monetization efforts in 2009 and managed to become profitable by 2012, all the while investing in continuous expansion. LinkedIn acquired SlideShare for $119 million (Rs. 640 crores) in May 2012. Rashmi Sinha, after the acquisition, led SlideShare as a unit of LinkedIn. In her role, she not only managed the SlideShare product, technology, marketing, and team but also collaborated closely with the LinkedIn leadership team to ensure alignment with the overall LinkedIn strategy.
Scientist
In 2014, after her son was diagnosed with Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (SJIA), Rashmi Sinha and Jonathan Boutelle began working on finding a cure for the same. In 2017 they founded the SJIA Foundation which is a non-profit organisation to help accelerate the work being done on SJIA. [2]All American Entertainment
Rashmi Sinha working for the Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Foundation that she started
Honours
- Fast Company awarded Rashmi Sinha with the title of ‘Most Influential Women in Web 2.0’ in 2008.
- Rashmi Sinha was No. 8 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Woman Entrepreneurs list in 2012.
- Rashmi Sinha was No. 4 on The Economic Times’ list of the 20 Most Influential Global Indian Women in January 2015.
Facts/Trivia
- Rashmi Sinha shares her name with a cancer researcher/ an epidemiologist.
- In an interview, Rashmi Sinha revealed that she does not like checking her phone and answering calls, and she prefers receiving an email before getting on call to discuss the matter at hand.
- Even though Rashmi Sinha has a private office, she prefers working with other employees.
- Rashmi likes going on hikes.
-
She is a polyglot and is fluent in Hindi, English, and Bengali.
-
From May 2005 to December 2008, she worked as a volunteer at the Program Chair, an initiative undertaken by BayCHI.
- Rashmi Sinha’s favourite presentation on SlideShare is a modified version of Karl Fisch’s slideshow. The original presentation by Karl Fisch explores globalization and America’s future in the 21st century, and is titled “Shift Happens”.
References
| ↑1 | |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | All American Entertainment |
