Nikesh Arora was the Chief Operating Officer and President of SoftBank Corp. He was also a former Google Executive.
Early Life
Born on 9th Feb 1968, Nikesh was born to an Indian Air Force Officer. He did his schooling from The Air Force School in Delhi. He graduated from IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), Varanasi with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. This took place in 1989. After that he went to Boston College for MS degree and also went to Northeaster University to get a degree in MBA. He also got a CFA designation later. He loved to play golf and is a fast thinker.
Family
Marriage
Nikesh got married to Ayesha Thapar. She is Delhi based girl who is a CEO of a company named Indian City Properties Ltd (ICPL). She has studied from Wellesly College with Economics as her subject. She moved back in India in 2008 and joined ICP. Ayesha is also a director of Integrated Realty Private Ltd and The Waterbase Ltd. Ayesha loves painting and also has a line of jewelry in her name. Before her stint in ICP she had launched her own business. She was previously the CEO of a Telecom VOIP company. This was in US for a period of 5 years. Ayesha is the great granddaughter of Karam Chand Thapar, who is the founder of Thapar Group. Ayesha is the daughter of Vikram Thapar, who is Managing Director and Chairman of KCT Group of Companies.
Nikesh and Ayesha’s wedding took place on Italian coastal resort of Borgo Egnazia. Many renowned celebrities attended their wedding in the month of July. Ayesha is a socialite. They got engaged on January 2014 and married on July 2014. The wedding was a huge affair. They chose the destination because it was central point between India and USA. People like Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Bal, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Larry Page and many more were present. The celebration of the wedding began from July 3.
Both Nikesh and Ayesha are getting married for a second time. Nikesh met Ayesha in India as he had to go for Google activities. He met Ayesha in a social event.
Children
Nikesh has a daughter from her previous marriage. Ayesha gave birth to Nikesh’s son in June 2, 2015. They named him Kiaan.
Parents
Arora’s father was an Air Force Officer.
Career
Arora’s career started with Fidelity Investments, Putnam Investments and Deutsche Telekom. He began his career in 1992. He worked as the CMO of T-Mobile International Division. He also worked for the Colgate-Palmolive Company as the Board of Directors from March 2012. He eventually resigned it in 2014. He had worked for Google for a period of 10 years. He left Google in the year 2014, resigning from the post of Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President.
Arora was paid an amount of $75 million to lead the SoftBank operations. This kind of pay package made him the world’s 3rd richest executive. SoftBank is a Japanese Internet Corporations and multinational telecommunications. On 21st June 2016, he announced his abrupt resignation from the company.