After Twitter permanently suspended the account of Donald Trump, the microblogging giant's top lawyer, Indian-American Vijaya Gadde, was at the forefront of the unprecedented decision.

Hyderabad-born Gadde, 45, is Twitter's legal, public policy and trust and safety lead.

On Friday, Gadde tweeted that the account of Trump has been "permanently suspended from Twitter due to the risk of further violence". At the time of suspension, Trump had 88.7 million followers and followed 51 people.

The account of @realDonaldTrump has been permanently suspended from Twitter due to the risk of further violence. We've also published our policy enforcement analysis - you can read more about our decision here: https://t.co/fhjXkxdEcw

— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) January 8, 2021

Vijaya was earlier senior director of legal at US multinational corporation Juniper Networks. Previously, she worked for nearly a decade at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a law firm based in California before she joined Twitter in 2011.

Gadde serves on the Board of Trustees of New York University Law School and the Board of Directors of Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian aid and development organisation, which partners with communities, corporations, and governments. She is also a co-founder of #Angels, an investment collective focused on funding diverse and ambitious founders pursuing bold ideas.

Gadde earned a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from New York University School of Law and a Bachelor of Science (BS) in industrial and labour relations from Cornell University.

She moved to the US with her parents when she was three years old and spent most of her childhood in Texas and New Jersey. Her father worked as a chemical engineer and also as an insurance agent after he lost his job. They were said to be living in a racist neighbourhood. The Gadde family then moved to the east coast, where Vijaya completed her high school in New Jersey.

“In her free time, she can be found reading fiction or, more likely, chasing her toddler. She also enjoys travelling, cooking and hiking.

In October 2020 Politico profiled her as "the most powerful social media executive you've never heard of'' and heads a team of more than 350 people under her supervision.

She is married to Ramsey Homsany who is co-founder of Octant Bio, a synthetic biology company, and an investor and advisor to startup technology companies. Homsany was previously the general counsel at Dropbox, where he had roles leading Dropbox's legal, digital security, government affairs, human resources, and communications teams. He also was vice president and deputy general counsel at Google, where he managed Google's commercial legal groups, as well as Google's Latin America legal team. He also taught law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Homsany holds a B.S. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from Rutgers University, and a J.D. from New York University.