People of Indian decent keep dominating USA tech industry despite the fact that Indian-origin people account for only about 1% of the US population and 6% of Silicon Valley's workforce - and yet are disproportionately represented in the top brass. When asked why, R Gopalakrishnan, former executive director of Tata Sons and co-author of The Made in Indian Manager, said "No other nation in the world 'trains' so many citizens in such a gladiatorial manner as India does."
Not only do Idians dominate the chief executive officer position in US tech industry, they dominate the entire cadres of Silicon Valley’s workforce.
There are dozens of India-born tech CEOs influencing Silicon Valley, a US tech hub, but here are some of them.
Sundar Pichai, Google CEO
The 47-year-old said the pair had set up a "strong foundation" on which he would "continue to build".
Pichai's life story is remarkable, and his rise to the top of Google is an endorsement of India's standing in the global technology industry - and equally, a reassuring reminder of the so-called "American Dream".
Pichai was born and schooled in Chennai, India. He captained his school's cricket team, leading it to win regional competitions.
He studied Metallurgical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur). According to one of his tutors, quoted in the Times of India, Pichai was the "brightest of his batch".
He has evidently used his talent to great effect at Google, which he joined in 2004. Products under his watch include Google's web browser, Chrome, as well as the Android mobile operating system.
Android is by far the world's most popular mobile operating system (OS) - a fact made perhaps more startling by the fact that Pichai's family did not possess a telephone until he was 12 years old.
According to a profile in Bloomberg magazine, Pichai's upbringing was humble. His family lived in a two-room apartment. Pichai didn't have a room - he slept on the living room floor, as did his younger brother.
Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, has been put in charge of its parent company Alphabet, after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced they were stepping down.
Parag Agrawal, Twitter CEO
Parag Agrawal, who was appointed last week as Twitter's CEO, has joined other Indian-born techies in the chief executive offices of the world's most influential Silicon Valley companies.
The 37-year-old succeeded Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who announced on Monday that he was stepping down.
Mr Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and rose through the ranks to become the company’s chief technology officer.
He has been added to the long list of Indian CEOs of global technology firms.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO
On 4 February 2014, Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft, the third CEO in the company's history, following Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer
Satya Narayana Adella who was born in 19 August 1967 in Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana), India, attended Manila Institute of Technology where he obtained Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, and University of Wisconsin-Miwaukee where bagged MSc. He also has MBA from University of Chicago.
Anjali Sud, CEO Vimeo
Anjali Sud was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Indian immigrants. She grew up in Flint, Michigan.
She graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2005, with a B.Sc. in Finance and Management.[7] In 2011, she received her MBA from Harvard Business School.[
In July 2017,Sud was appointed to CEO of Vimeo, when the firm announced its plans to redirect its business strategy from investing in original content to offering software and tools for video creators. In September 2017, Sud oversaw the acquisition of Livestream. In April 2019, Sud oversaw the acquisition of video editing app Magisto
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO
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| Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO Source: adobe.com |
Shantanu Narayen is chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Adobe, one of the largest and most diversified software companies in the world.
According to information on Adobe’s official site, Shantanu joined Adobe in 1998 as vice president and general manager of its engineering technology group. He became president and COO in 2005, CEO in 2007, and chairman of the board in 2017.
Shantanu is currently the vice chairman of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum and sits on the board of Pfizer. He previously served as a director of Dell and is a past member of the U.S. President’s Management Advisory Board.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from Osmania University, master’s degree in computer science, and business administration from Bowling Green State University and University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Shantanu once represented India in sailing at an Asian regatta respectively.
Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO
Arvind Krishna graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK), where he obtained Bsc and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the recipient of distinguished alumni awards from both institutions.
Arvind Krishna is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM. As a business leader and technologist, he has led the building and expansion of new markets for IBM in artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing, and blockchain. He has also played a significant role in the development of innovative IBM products and solutions based on these emerging technologies.
Raghu Raghuram, VMWare CEO
VMware recently appointed its longtime technologist and cloud leader Raghu Raghuram as its new CEO taking over from former CEO Pat Gelsinger who left this year to head Intel.
Raghuram joined the company in 2003 overseeing VMware’s ESX and vSphere, which would become VMware’s flagship product.
Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks CEO
Nikesh Arora joined as chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks in June 2018. Before joining Palo Alto Networks, Nikesh served as president and chief operating officer of SoftBank Group Corp. Prior to that, he held a number of positions at Google, Inc. during a 10-year span, including senior vice president and chief business officer, president of global sales operations and business development, and president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Prior to joining Google, Nikesh held the role of chief marketing officer for the T-Mobile International Division of Deutsche Telekom AG. He was chief executive officer and founder of T-Motion PLC, which merged with T-Mobile International in 2002.
Nikesh serves on the board of Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A., a public Switzerland-based luxury goods holding company, and Tipping Point, a non-profit organization that fights poverty in the Bay Area. Previously, he served on the boards of SoftBank Group Corp., Sprint Corp., Colgate-Palmolive Inc. and Yahoo! Japan, among others. He holds an M.S. in Business Administration from Northeastern University, an M.S. in finance from Boston College and a B. Tech. in electrical engineering from the Institute of Technology at Banaras Hindu University.
Nir Zuk, Palo Alto Networks Founder
Nir Zuk brings a wealth of network security expertise and industry experience to Palo Alto Networks. Prior to co-founding Palo Alto Networks, Nir was CTO at NetScreen Technologies, which was acquired by Juniper Networks in 2004. Prior to NetScreen, Nir was co-founder and CTO at OneSecure, a pioneer in intrusion prevention and detection appliances. Nir was also a principal engineer at Check Point Software Technologies, and was one of the developers of stateful inspection technology.
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