eGlobalTech founder Sonya Jain dies from cancer

Sonya Jain, the founder of eGlobalTech, died Dec. 17 at age 54 after a battle with carcinoid cancer.

Jain founded the Arlington, Va.-based contractor in 2004 and was well-recognized for her entrepreneurship.

She won a 2016 winner of the Women in Technology Leadership Award. The company also was named a top 25 women-owned business in Virginia for several years.

Jain was born March 16, 1963, in New Delhi, India and studied at the Indian Institute of Technology as one out of eight women in a class of 200.

Jain's first job as an engineering brought her to the U.S., where she first worked for the state of Michigan on a software project.

Jain then started at Booz Allen Hamilton in 1992 when she moved to the Washington area.

After Jain founded eGlobalTech, the company grew to more than 300 employees and had 2016 revenue of $80 million. The company provides management, cybersecurity and IT consulting services to government customers. 

She recently was honored by the Washington Business Journal as one of the "Women Who Mean Business."

In WBJ's profile of her, they described how she grew up in India when Indira Gandhi was the country’s first female prime minister. That inspired Jain as she pursued her career as an engineer and entrepreneur.

Jain is survived by her husband Sanjiv, who is a senior vice president at the company, and two daughters.