10 Things You Didn’t Know about Sukhinder Singh Cassidy
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is a notable businesswoman. Over the course of her career, she has been involved with a number of well-known companies such as Amazon, Google, and Stubhub. On top of this, Cassidy has just released a book called Choose Possibility, which covers decision-making for people who are fearful of making a bad decision for their career.
1. Born to Parents of Sikh Descent
Given Cassidy’s name, interested individuals might have guessed that she was born to parents of Sikh descent. Originally, Singh was used by kshatriyas. However, Singh became associated with Sikhs because Guru Gobind Singh instructed male Sikhs to adopt the name in the 18th century, which was meant as a rejection of caste-based prejudice in part. Not every Singh is Sikh. However, there is a good chance that someone named Singh is either Sikh or descended from Sikhs.
2. Born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Having said that, Cassidy was born in Dar es Salaam, which is an Arabic name that means “place of peace.” Said city is the capital of Tanzania, an East African country that sits upon the coast of the Indian Ocean. Dar es Salaam is huge, so much so that it can claim the position of the single most populous city that can be found in the entire region. Moreover, it is expected to become even bigger still in the times to come, with one estimate saying that it will reach approximately 73 million people by 2100. For context, that would be more than Tanzania’s entire population in the present time. Naturally, this status means that Dar es Salaam is an important center of culture, commerce, and administration.
3. Used to Be a Member of the Indian Diaspora in Southeast Africa
As such, Cassidy was once a member of the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa. For those who are unfamiliar, there are approximately 3 million people of Indian descent living in the region in the present time. In most cases, they are descended from people who came from British-controlled India as indentured laborers in the 19th century. However, the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa existed long before that because of the seaborne trade that existed between the two regions. Unfortunately, there was much anti-Indian sentiment in the region following independence, with the result that a lot of people from the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa moved to India, Pakistan, and the five countries that make up the Anglosphere.
4. Grew Up in St. Catharines, Ontario
In Cassidy’s case, her family moved to the Canadian province of Ontario when she was still at the age of two. As a result, she grew up in St. Catharines, which is the biggest of the cities that can be found in Canada’s Niagara Region but is much less prominent in the province as a whole. Regardless, St. Catharines’s name is a source of considerable debate. One would assume that the city was named for one of the numerous Christian saints named either Catherine or some variation on that. However, the most popular theory is that St. Catharines was named for the wife of an early white settler in the region.
5. Went to the University of Western Ontario
Education-wise, Cassidy went to the University of Western Ontario, which is a school situated in London, Ontario. There, she earned a HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business. As for what a HBA is supposed to be, well, it seems to be an undergraduate degree called Bachelor of Arts in Honors Business Administration. Said degree is notable for being the very first business-related degree ever offered by the University of Western Ontario.
6. Comes from an Entrepreneurial Family
Apparently, Cassidy came from an entrepreneurial family. For those who are curious, both of her parents were doctors. Furthermore, they weren’t doctors who worked for preexisting institutions. Instead, they decided to run their own medical practice for 30 years, which is the kind of thing that would have demanded a wide range of business skills on top of their medical expertise and experience.
7. Started Out in Investment Banking
Generally speaking, Cassidy is best-known for being involved with various tech companies situated in Silicon Valley. However, it is interesting to note that her career started out in investment banking. To be exact, Cassidy used to work for Merrill Lynch in New York and then London. Nowadays, Merrill Lynch is no longer an independent company. This is because it was bought out by Bank of America during the financial crisis of 2007 to 2008, with the result that it became a division of the latter. Still, the name continues to see use because of its built-up brand power.
8. Angel Investor
Cassidy is still involved with investing to an extent. After all, she is an angel investor, meaning someone who offers capital to businesses in exchange for either ownership equity or convertible debt. The term can trace its roots to Broadway theatre, which used “angel” as a term for well-off individuals who saved productions from having to shut down by providing them with financial backing. Later, it winded up being applied to investors in the late 1970s, who may or may not have motivations beyond the purely financial for their investment decisions. In any case, it is interesting to note that the number of angel investors has exploded in recent decades, with the result that some of them have gathered together to create angel groups and angel networks.
9. Involved with a Number of Well-Known Tech Companies
Over the course of her career, Cassidy has been involved with a number of well-known tech companies. For example, she winded up at Amazon when a startup called Junglee got bought out. There, she played an important role in merchant business development. Similarly, she was at Google in the early 2000s, where she worked on Google Local & Maps while heading up content acquisition for books and other things.
10. Married to a Fellow Canadian
Cassidy is named to another Canadian named Simon Cassidy, a one-time hedge fund manager who now runs an independent investment firm. The two live in the San Francisco Bay Area along with their three children.
