Naveen Jain: Success Story worth Retelling
22/08/2009 4:45
on: Money Making
Tales of success among prominent personalities in business are always worth retelling, like the story of Seattle businessman and philanthropist Naveen Jain, current CEO and President of Washington-based Intelius. He adds to the growing list of immigrant CEOs making a mark in startups all across America. Per latest tally, around 25% of major startups are headed by foreign-born CEOs. Like all migrant success stories told, Jain’s climb to the top took intelligence, guts, and perseverance.
Naveen Jain was born in 1959 in Uttar Pradesh, India. Having completed his undergraduate studies at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and a master’s degree at the XLRI Jamshedpur, he traveled to the United States via a business exchange grant shortly after he finished his studies. He worked at Burroughs Corporation in New Jersey for a time. Afterwards, he was hired by Microsoft in 1989. Starting out as a group manager, he eased his way up to handle the most significant accounts of the company including the Microsoft Network and flagship services like Windows NT and MS-DOS. In 1996, he parted ways with Microsoft and gambled on the burgeoning startup industry. Naveen Jain established his InfoSpace, which delivered search engine and directory services. Soon after, InfoSpace forged alliances with big names like MSN, Lycos, AOL and Go Network. His leadership turned InfoSpace into a $31 billion dollar business at its peak.
After he left the company in 2002, Naveen Jain pursued another endeavor with former colleagues; the result was Intelius, formed in 2003 as an information commerce company to specialize in delivering intelligence services online. At present, Intelius leads in the field of information security, and is considered one of the Fast 50 Companies by Deloitte and Touche. Eight million unique clients all over America utilize its signature services like background checks, screening, and verification as well as people search.
