160. Komal Shah

Art collector and philanthropist Komal Shah, originally from Ahmedabad, India, migrated to the US in 1991 to study computer science in California. After completing her Masters at Stanford, she earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, eventually holding positions in the executive suites of Oracle, Netscape, and Yahoo. In 2008, Shah left the tech industry to focus on philanthropic pursuits. She then began developing the Shah Garg Collection with her husband and tech entrepreneur Gaurav Garg, solidifying a vision for the collection’s emphasis on women artists in 2014. Today, they are focused on amplifying the voices of women artists and artists of color through the Shah Garg Foundation.
She and Zuckerman discuss activism, mistakes, excellence, motherhood, ungendered works, the seduction principle, how only 12% of works collected by museums are by female artists and how women artists make $.10 on a dollar, how to build a collection, great artists, and the social reality of guilt!