Five successful CEOs in India who are not even graduates
Graduation is considered an important milestone in a student's learning journey. However, we all heard of people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg who have been successful even without graduating college. In India too, there are many successful people in the business, including college dropouts and those who haven't been to college at all. Here are five Indian CEOs who aren't graduates.
Ritesh Agarwal, the Founder and CEO of OYO Rooms
Ritesh Agarwal, the Founder and CEO of OYO Rooms & Homes, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country. He dropped out of college at the age of 17 and decided to follow his dreams. In 2012, Agarwal founded Oravel Stays Private Limited, the Gurugram-based parent company of OYO Hotels & Homes, a technology-enabled hotel chain, when he was just 18.
Kailash Katkar, Founder and CEO of Quick Heal Technologies
Kailash Katkar is the Founder and CEO of Quick Heal Technologies, one of the leading virus protection/computer security solutions providers. Katkar, who doesn't even have any formal education, started off with a job at a small repair shop opened a one-room electrical device repair station -CAT Computer Services- in 1991. In 1993, he founded Quick Heal Technologies in Pune along with his brother.
Azhar Iqubal, the co-founder and CEO of Inshorts
Azhar Iqubal, the Co-Founder and CEO of Inshorts, is also a successful entrepreneur who doesn't have a graduation degree. He was in the final-year of his graduation at IIT-Delhi when he dropped out and went on to start Inshorts, the pioneer of short-form news content in the country. He founded the company along with two of his friends, also dropouts from IIT-Delhi, in 2013.
Ankit Oberoi is the co-founder and CEO of AdPushup
Ankit Oberoi is the co-founder and CEO of AdPushup, a revenue optimization platform for publishers and bloggers that helps in increasing their ad revenue. He is also not a college graduate. He dropped out of Maharaja Agrasen College of the Delhi University in the first semester itself as he believed one doesn't need to be at college to learn something in this Internet era.
#5: Varun Shoor was the CEO of Kayako
Varun Shoor, who founded Kayako, was also the CEO of the customer service/helpdesk software company. In 2001, he founded the company at the age of 17 years in Jalandhar (now relocated to London) after dropping out of college. He, however, exited the company in 2018.
