Every person has the desire to become successful in life and achieve great heights. Everybody tries their best to achieve their dreams but only some handful of people can eventually reach such level and can be called winners. Such people are not only successful because of their luck but because they have the will to succeed. Their success eventually becomes an example for others to follow. Most importantly these successful people are those who never gave up and fought their way to success in the midst of difficult and challenging circumstances.
Nikesh Arora is one such person who lived his dream and became the highest-paid executive in the world after going through all the difficult phases of life and overcoming them with grit and determination.
Born in the house of an Indian Air Force officer in Ghaziabad, Nikesh received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, BHU in 1989. At the age of 21, he went to America for further studies and successfully completed MBA from Northeastern University.
But even after studying from a reputed university, Nikesh’s early journey was never smooth.
In an interview, Arora told that in the beginning, he could not crack any of the interviews he sat for and had to sustain with only $200 dollars that his father gave him.
In the year 1992, he finally got a job in Fidelity Investments. Here, he organized top finance and technology management portfolios. Later, he was made the vice-president because of his excellent contribution. After working a few years in Fidelity Investments, Nikesh decided to enter the telecom sector and in 2001 he joined the T-Mobile International Division as the Chief Marketing Officer.
In 2004, he joined Google and led the European operations. His intention to join Google proved to be revolutionary and after that, he never had to look back. After working here for a few years, in 2011, he was promoted to Chief Business Officer of the company and became the highest-paid officer in Google. Nikesh, working in Google, took several steps to open new advertising markets and increase the advertising revenue of the company. He also played a major role in increasing the revenue from display ads and getting more advertisers for Google’s YouTube video site.
In October 2014, Nikesh quit from the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Google and joined SoftBank Group. In October 2014, under the leadership of Nikesh, SoftBank invested $62.7 million in Snapdeal and $21 million in Ola Cabs. In November 2014, Softbank invested $9 million in real estate website Housing.com. Not only this, Softbank had invested in the grocery delivery startup Grofers under the leadership of Nikesh in August-November 2015.
Nikesh Arora received a salary package of $73 million (about Rs 500 crore) in the financial year 2015-16. This salary package made him the world’s third-highest-paid executive.
Nikesh got married to the daughter of Indian City Properties CEO Vikram Thapar, Ayesha Thapar who is also running her own business successfully from Delhi.
In June 2016 Arora resigned from SoftBank Corp. Arora credits three important factors for his success – hard work, ability to adapt according to situations and fate.
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