NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT
Seven Indian-American women are among the trailblazers named to Forbes’ 2026 50 Over 50 lists, spanning entrepreneurship, technology, STEM education, finance, philanthropy and the arts.
Among this year’s honorees are Ritu Narayan, the entrepreneur behind a $1.7 billion effort to reinvent the American school bus system, and Maya Ajmera, who went from participating in one of the nation’s most prestigious high school science competitions as a teenager to leading the organization that runs it.
They are joined by Yamini Rangan, Shubhi Rao, Savita Subramanian, Komal Shah and Asha Jadeja Motwani across Forbes’ Innovation, Investment, Lifestyle and Impact categories.
Forbes’ annual 50 Over 50 initiative celebrates women who are achieving some of their most significant professional milestones after the age of 50.
Ritu Narayan: Reinventing the Yellow School Bus
Narayan, 53, co-founder and CEO of Zum, was named to the Innovation list for building a technology-driven school transportation company that Forbes says is now valued at $1.7 billion.
The idea for Zum grew out of a problem familiar to millions of working parents.
While pursuing her career in Silicon Valley, Narayan struggled to find reliable transportation for her young children. The experience reminded her of her mother, an educator in India who had given up her career because of the difficulties of balancing work and caring for her children.
Narayan found herself confronting a version of the same dilemma a generation later — despite living in the heart of Silicon Valley.
She co-founded Zum with her brothers in 2015, setting out to modernize a school transportation system that had changed little in decades.
Today, Zum uses technology to manage school bus routes and provides GPS-enabled systems that allow schools and parents to track buses. According to Forbes, the company serves 5,000 schools nationwide and generated $333 million in revenue in 2025, a 35% increase from the previous year.
Its $1.7 billion valuation has made Narayan one of the relatively small number of women to have built a U.S. startup valued at more than $1 billion.
Maya Ajmera: A Remarkable Full Circle in American Science
For Maya Ajmera, 59, the Forbes recognition marks an extraordinary full-circle journey.
Ajmera is president and CEO of Society for Science, the nonprofit organization that runs some of America’s best-known pre-college science competitions, and executive publisher of Science News.
Long before she led the organization, however, Ajmera was one of the young scientists it sought to encourage.
As a teenager, she participated in the Science Talent Search. Decades later, she is at the helm of the organization behind the competition.
Forbes credits Ajmera, who became CEO in 2014, with significantly expanding the organization’s reach and resources. Under her leadership, Society for Science secured a $100 million, 10-year sponsorship for the Science Talent Search and launched an $11 million STEM outreach initiative designed to expand opportunities for underserved students.
Forbes also notes that Science News, where Ajmera serves as executive publisher, now reaches more than 23 million readers.
She was named to the Innovation list.
Yamini Rangan: Leading HubSpot Through a New Era
Yamini Rangan, 53, CEO of HubSpot, also appears on the Innovation list.
Born in India, Rangan moved to the United States for graduate studies, earning a master’s degree in computer engineering and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Her career included senior positions at Dropbox and Workday before she joined HubSpot and became CEO in 2021.
Forbes notes that under Rangan’s leadership, HubSpot’s revenue has doubled to $3.1 billion. The software company also recorded its first annual profit in 2025, with net income of $45.9 million.
Her tenure comes as artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the software industry, presenting established technology companies with both opportunities and significant disruption.
Shubhi Rao: Starting Over — and Building — After 50
Shubhi Rao, 59, founder and CEO of Uplevyl, rounds out the four Indian-American women named to Forbes’ Innovation list.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Rao had already built an extensive corporate career, holding leadership roles at organizations including Ford Motor, Tesco, Alphabet/Google and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
She founded Uplevyl in 2020, in her 50s, after recognizing gaps in workplace information about issues affecting women’s careers, including caregiving and menopause.
The AI-powered platform provides information and tools aimed at helping organizations and executives make better workplace decisions. Forbes says its services are used by organizations including Evercore, Ancestry.com and Equal Rights Advocates.
Savita Subramanian: A Voice Wall Street Watches
On Forbes’ Investment list is Savita Subramanian, 54, managing director and head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy at Bank of America.
Subramanian is responsible for the bank’s forecasts for major U.S. stock indexes, making her market outlook closely watched by investors and financial media.
Forbes highlighted a June 2026 investment note in which Subramanian pointed to warning signs in the market and advised investors to take profits amid the possibility of a bear market.
She began her career at Merrill Lynch as a strategist in 2001, years before the firm was acquired by Bank of America.
Komal Shah: From Silicon Valley to Championing Women Artists
Komal Shah, 56, named to Forbes’ Lifestyle list, made a dramatic career transition from Silicon Valley technology executive to prominent art collector and philanthropist.
Born in India, Shah came to the United States to study computer science at Stanford University and built a career in technology before increasingly devoting herself to the arts.
She and her husband, technology investor Gaurav Garg, began assembling what became the Shah Garg Collection, which has developed a particular focus on contemporary art by women.
Forbes highlighted Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, which opened at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., in 2026 as part of a traveling exhibition.
Through collecting and philanthropy, Shah has sought to increase the visibility of women artists in a field in which their work has historically been underrepresented.
Asha Jadeja Motwani: Investing in Innovation and Ideas
Asha Jadeja Motwani, 63, was selected for Forbes’ Impact list.
A Silicon Valley venture capitalist and philanthropist, Jadeja Motwani has invested in more than 200 technology startups. Forbes cites early investments in companies including Google, PayPal, Pinterest and AppDynamics.
Following the death of her husband, Stanford computer scientist and early Google mentor Rajeev Motwani, in 2009, she established the Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation, whose work includes supporting entrepreneurship and strengthening ties between the innovation ecosystems of India and the United States.
Forbes also highlighted her $5 million endowment in 2025 to establish the Motwani Jadeja Institute for American Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University in India.
Taken together, the seven Indian-American honorees embody the central idea behind Forbes’ 50 Over 50 initiative: that some of a woman’s most consequential professional chapters can begin well after the age at which conventional career narratives suggest she should have already peaked.
Narayan built Zum into a billion-dollar company after identifying a problem she encountered as a working mother. Rao became a founder in her 50s. Shah reinvented herself after a successful technology career. And Ajmera’s journey brought her back, decades later, to an institution that had once encouraged her own ambitions as a young scientist.
Their inclusion on the 2026 lists offers seven very different versions of the same message: 50 is not a finish line.
Cover photo: Top row Yamini Rangan, Maya Ajmera, Ritu Narayan.
Bottom row: Asha Jadeja Motwani, Shubhi Rao, Komal Shah and Savita Subramanian.
