When Susan Wojcicki graduated Anderson in 1998, she relocated to Menlo Park in Northern California. There, she met a couple of Stanford computer science graduate students named Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
That same year, the tech duo set up their home base in Wojcicki’s garage. The company they created: Google (Just – ahem -- Google it if you don't believe it!)
In addition to being recognized as one of Anderson's "100 Inspirational Alumni", she has now been named one of Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women in the World. At number 16 in the rankings, she edged out heavy hitting female contemporaries including Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez, singer Beyoncé Knowles and Editor-In-Chief of AOL Huffington Post Media Group Arianna Huffington.
The Forbes list describes Wojcicki's qualifications saying that she is:
"The most important Googler you've never heard of." Susan Wojcicki, SVP of Advertising at Google, oversaw the company's acquisitions of YouTube and DoubleClick, acquired for $1.65 and $3.1 billion, respectively, and is the brain behind crowd-pleaser Google Doodles. Wojcicki leads all new product development including Google's two main advertising vehicles, AdWords and AdSense, and is responsible for responsible for 96% of Google's revenues, $28.2 billion in 2010. She is currently focusing on the growing business of mobile advertising.
Wojcicki is a member of the UCLA Anderson Board of Visitors.
Read a full Q & A with Susan on Forbes' website here
To see who else made the list of 2011's Most Powerful Women according to Forbes, click here