NEW YORK: Five Indian-Americans are among the 400 richest people in the US, according to a Forbes list topped by Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates for the 23rd year in a row.
Symphony Technology founder Romesh Wadhwani, co-founders of outsourcing firm Syntel Bharat & Neerja Desai, airline veteran Rakesh Gangwal, entrepreneur John Kapoor and Silicon Valley angel investor Kavitark Ram Shriram have featured in Forbes’ ‘The Richest People In America 2016’ list.
The list has been topped by 60-year-old Gates who has a net worth of $81 billion.
Gates keeps pushing to save lives in the developing world through efforts to eliminate polio, attack malaria and expand childhood vaccinations as head of the world’s largest private charitable foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Forbes said.
Wadhwani, 69, has been ranked 222nd on the list with a net worth of $3 billion.
The IIT-Mumbai and Carnegie Mellon alumnus is the chairman and CEO of Symphony Technology Group, an empire of 17 data, technology, healthcare and analytics companies that together take in more than $2.8 billion in annual revenue, Forbes said.
Last year, Wadhwani announced that he planned to commit up to $1 billion to fund entrepreneurship initiatives in India.
The Desai’s rank 274th on the list with a net worth of $2.5 billion.
Syntel, started in 1980 from an apartment in Michigan, now generates over $950 million in revenue and has nearly 24,000 employees across the globe, Forbes said.
Gangwal is ranked 321 on the list with a net worth of $2.2 billion.
The 63-year old IIT alumnus is an airline veteran who made his fortune from InterGlobe Aviation, the parent company of his budget airline IndiGo, India’s largest by market share.
Gangwal co-founded IndiGo, headquartered outside Delhi in 2006 with one aircraft. The Miami resident owns more than 40 per cent of the company and now serves as a board member, Forbes said.
Kapoor ranks 335 on the list with a net worth of $2.1 billion.