“17 to 1 is the current ratio of male CEOs and female CEOs in the world. Female representation at the top of C-suites was only 8% in 2021, according to male vs female CEO statistics. Women CEOs led merely 10.4 % of businesses owned by US-based conglomerates, as per a 2023 study by Fortune.com. The gender gap in the American corporate is so wide that we got to cover only one Indian-origin woman CEO, Devika Bulchandani, against 15 Indian-origin business leaders who made it big as global CEOs in the past two years,” said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats.
However, filling the gap a little is Indian-origin Dhivya Suryadevara who recently got her foothold in the American C-suite as CEO of financial services at UnitedHealth Group, the world’s largest health care MNC by revenue. With this most prestigious designation, she joined the elite club of not only Indian American CEOs, but also South Indians like Indra Nooyi, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Sundar Pichai, Anand Eswaran, Satya Nadella, and Somyanarayan Sampath.
CEO Dhivya Suryadevara, who lives in New York City, had made history in 2018 as the first female Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of General Motors in its 110-year history. Her journey from a humble background in Chennai to the C-suite of the leading American automaker was so popular a story in international media that she became a ‘poster girl’ for ambition. She joined GM as a senior financial analyst in SEP 2004 and rose up the ranks, such as Manager, Fixed Income; Managing Director, Investment Strategy; Chief Investment Officer, Asset Management; VP of Corporate Finance in 2015.
She used to be referred to as one of the fastest rising stars at GM due to the meteoric growth in her ‘American Dream’ career. As the youngest Chief Investment Officer of GM Asset Management, Dhivya was at the helm of funds worth $85bn for the company’s pension plans. She made it to Fortune Magazine’s ‘40 under 40’ list of the most influential young people in business for her decisive leadership in finance and investment.
Her strategy for investor relations was a pivot in GM’s profitable investments, including that in Lyft, a ride-hailing service provider in USA and Canada. Her corporate finance planning was among the drivers for the company’s hassle-free acquisition of Cruise, a self-driving tech startup. In an official statement issued in June 2018, GM acknowledged Dhivya’s efforts behind Softbank’s $2.25bn investment in the company’s autonomous vehicle technology project.
Evidently, her resignation only in two years of her role as General Motors’ CFO was headlined as ‘a surprising departure’ in the media coverage far and wide.
Dhivya Suryadevara’s ceaseless thrust for performance and progress comes from the way she was raised along with her two sisters by a single mother in Chennai, India. After her father’s untimely demise, her mother worked hard to provide for their education. “Her high expectations made us want to do better, and we learned that nothing comes easy. You have to work diligently to get what you need or desire,” Dhivya told Quartz.com in an interview.
After having passed Chartered Accountancy following an M.Com. degree, she travelled to the States to study MBA at Harvard Business School. Thereafter, she got to intern at the World Bank in 2002, which propelled her career to UBS Group as an Investment Banker.
Her story may resonate with thousands of Indian students from middle-income families, who are aspiring to get an F1 visa or currently studying in the US or any other country. Since Indian American CEO Dhivya Suryadevara’s flight to USA, Harvard education, and other expenses were funded with student loans, she found herself under a pressure to perform, earn and succeed so that the loan could be paid back with the accrued interest amount.