Technology Executive
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (born Sukhinder Singh in 1970) is a technology executive and entrepreneur. Formerly the president of StubHub, she has worked at various tech and media companies including Google, Amazon and News Corp, Yodlee (YODL), and Polyvore.[1] In 2011, she founded JOYUS, the video shopping platform for women, and served as CEO then Chairman until 2017.[2] Singh Cassidy is also Founder of theBoardlist.[3]
Early life and education
Cassidy was born in 1970 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to parents of Indian Sikh descent. Her family moved to Ontario, Canada, when she was two years old. She grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario, in the Niagara Region.[4] Cassidy graduated from the University of Western Ontario and earned her Honours in business administration from that university's Ivey School of Business in 1992.[5]
Cassidy was raised in an entrepreneurial family. Both of her parents were doctors and ran a medical practice for thirty years.[6]
Career
Early career
Cassidy started her career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in New York. She moved to the Merrill Lynch London office in 1994. She then worked as an analyst for British Sky Broadcasting.[7]
In 1998, Cassidy moved to Silicon Valley and joined ecommerce startup Junglee as Head of Business Development. Junglee was acquired by Amazon in 1998.[8] Following the acquisition, Cassidy joined Amazon, where she led merchant business development for the first generation of Amazon marketplace. According to Bloomberg Business, she helped create "one of the company's first programs designed to deliver shoppers to merchants that carried what the buyers were looking for."[7]
Cassidy co-founded financial services platform Yodlee in 1999 with five engineering co-founders, including Schwark Satyavolu[7] and served as SVP of Sales and Business Development from 1999 to 2003. In 2014, Yodlee went public, trading under the ticker YODL.[9]
In 2003, Cassidy joined Google as the first General Manager for Google Local & Maps, and Head of Content Acquisition for Books, Library, Scholar, Shopping and Video. There she launched Google Local and Maps, with product manager Bret Taylor and a team of engineers. In 2004, she became head of Google's international operations in Asia Pacific (APAC) and Latin America (LATAM), becoming VP in 2005 and then President of APAC and LATAM in 2008. Singh-Cassidy is credited with building Google's presence across 103 countries in Asia Pacific and Latin America.[10]
In 2009, Cassidy left Google to become CEO-in-Residence at venture capital firm Accel Partners.[11] Singh Cassidy was named CEO of Polyvore in 2010,.[12]
Joyus
In October 2010, Cassidy had the idea for a new platform aimed at converging content and commerce through online video as a way to increase consumer engagement with products and drive direct purchases via the video.[13][14] She founded JOYUS in January, 2011 in San Francisco, CA. Joyus.com launched to the public in August, 2011.[6] Singh Cassidy raised $7.9 million in seed funding from Accel Partners, Harrison Metal, Joel Hyatt, Venky Harinarayan & Anand Rajaraman.[15] In 2012, JOYUS raised a second round of funding totaling $11.5 million from Interwest and Time Warner, as well as existing investors.[16]
JOYUS was ranked one of the "Hot 100" e-retailing websites by Internet Retailer in 2012;[17] and one of the "Top 25 Ecommerce Companies to Watch" by Brand Innovators in 2013.[18] JOYUS was a winner of the 2013 Brightcove Innovation Awards[19] and a winner of the 2013 L’Oreal Next Generation Digital Awards.[20]
JOYUS was acquired by StackCommerce in September, 2017.[21]
#ChoosePossibility Project and theBoardlist
In May 2015, Cassidy published an open letter, titled "Tech Women Choose Possibility", challenging the tech community to increase the rate of progress for women in the industry by leveraging its wealth of existing female talent.[22] The letter was co-signed by 59 female entrepreneurs and investors. Singh Cassidy based the letter on her own experiences as a tech entrepreneur and research she conducted on 230 female founders and CEOs of tech companies.[23]
Cassidy launched theBoardlist, the first initiative of the #ChoosePossibility Project, on July 15, 2015.[3] theBoardlist is an online marketplace that connects CEOs who are looking for board candidates with women who are peer-endorsed for private and public tech company boards. When it launched, theBoardlist included the names of over 600 women who had been endorsed by 50 investors and CEOs in the tech industry, from companies including Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Twitter, Lyft and Box.[24]
On October 20, 2015, theBoardlist announced that it had facilitated its first placement of a woman to the board of a private tech company.[25]
As of late 2017, theBoardlist had attracted over 1,400 executives to nominate over 2,100 women for board service, and influenced over 100 board placements.[26]
Singh Cassidy was president of StubHub from April 2018[27] until May 2020.[28]
Xero
On November 10, 2022, Cassidy was named as CEO of Xero Ltd, the NZ-headquartered technology company and provider of cloud-based accounting tools for small and medium-sized businesses and accountants.[29] Starting with Xero on November 28, Cassidy formally became CEO on 1 February 2023.[30]
Personal life
Cassidy is married to Simon Cassidy, a fellow Canadian and former hedge-fund manager who runs an independent investment firm.[6] The couple have three children and live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Board member and advisor
Cassidy serves as a public board director at TripAdvisor (TRIP),[31] Ericsson (ERIC),[32] and Urban Outfitters (URBN).[33] She previously served on the boards of J. Crew Group, Inc.(JCG), StitchFix, and as an advisor to Twitter.[1]
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