A recent Forbes report highlighting billionaire immigrants who began their careers in the United States on an H-1B visa features only a few individuals of Indian origin. One of them is Raj Sardana, the founder and CEO of Innova Solutions. Sardana, who initially moved to the U.S. for higher education, built his business from the ground up and has now amassed a fortune of $2 billion.
Born in 1960 to Punjabi parents who had migrated to India during the Partition of 1947, Sardana spent his early years in government housing in New Delhi. His family lacked modern amenities, living without heating, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a phone, a television, or a car, as reported by HT.
“Despite our humble beginnings, my parents instilled the values of relentless hard work and found a way to provide quality education to me and my brother,” Sardana shared in an interview with Authority Magazine.
Moving to the U.S. with Only $100
In 1981, Sardana relocated to the United States to pursue a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech. Arriving with merely $100 in his possession, he took up a job in the college cafeteria to sustain himself financially.
“I started my life from scratch here,” he said. “I got a job at the cafeteria of Georgia Tech and supported myself through college.”
Upon completing his studies, he obtained an H-1 visa—predecessor to the current H-1B visa—and secured employment at Howmet Aerospace.
A Career Setback That Paved the Way for Success
By 1987, Sardana had landed a prestigious position at Teledyne CAE, a company engaged in the manufacturing of Tomahawk missile engines. However, in 1990, with the Cold War coming to an end, missile production was discontinued, and Sardana found himself unemployed.
“I had just bought a house with a mortgage, had a six-month-old daughter, and my parents were also living with me. At that moment, I had no income to support my family,” he recalled.
Rather than searching for another job, he chose to embark on an entrepreneurial journey.
Establishing Innova Solutions from the Ground Up
With savings amounting to $25,000, Sardana launched his own business. Over the next decade, his efforts culminated in the creation of Innova Solutions, an IT services firm. Today, the company has expanded to employ over 50,000 individuals across the globe, and Sardana’s net worth has soared to $2 billion.
