China maybe investing billions in companies worldwide, but its Indians who are controlling these empires. With the recent promotion of Sunder Pichai as the new CEO of Google, three Indian born executives now control companies whose combined revenue exceeds the gross domestic product of approximately 140 countries. The three CEO’s are Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Nokia’s Rajeev Suri and Google’s Sunder Pichai. The combined revenue of the three brands is US$159.6 billion in revenue last year, according to Quartz. Add to this the intellectual capital brought in by Indian born deans of American universities – Nitin Nohria, dean of the Harvard Business School, Sunil Kumar, dean of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Dipak C. Jain, the current dean of INSEAD and we have ourselves a world in which Indians control both intellectual and financial capital worldwide. Below, Inchin Closer profiles 14 of the top Indian born CEO’s of our generation – Satya Nadella – Microsoft – Born in Hyderabad, India, 47 year old Satya Narayana Nadella became the CEO of the US technology giant Microsoft in early 2014. After completing his Bachelor’s in India from Manipal Institute of Technology, he went to the US to pursue higher education in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Nadella had worked with Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992. Sundar Pichai – Google – An Indian Institute of Technology, Stanford (MS) and Wharton (MBA) alumnus, 43-year-old Pichai is the new CEO of Internet giant Google. The Chennai-born soft-spoken Pichai joined the company in 2004. He is responsible for the launch of the dominant Chrome web browser, and was previously the product head for Android, Chrome, Maps, and other popular Google products.
Indra Nooyi – PepsiCo – Nooyi has been the CEO of PepsiCo – the second-largest food and beverage comapny in the world by net revenue – since 2006. She has consistently ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women. Like many others, she attended schools and colleges in India before leaving the country for higher education in the US.
Shantanu Narayen – Adobe systems – Like Microsoft’s chief Nadella, Narayen is an alumnus of the Hyderabad Public School. He is the CEO of Adobe Systems. Narayen started his professional career at Apple. Narayen was named to the board of US’s Management Advisory Board by president Barack Obama; he also serves on the board of Dell, as well as the advisory board of Haas School of Business.
Rajeev Suri – Nokia – Nokia’s CEO Rajeev Suri went to the Manipal Institute of Technology. He became Nokia’s boss after the sale of Nokia’s phone division to Microsoft Mobile was completed.
Ajaypal Singh Banga – Mastercard – Ajay Banga has been in charge of MasterCard since 2010. An Economics graduate from Delhi University, Banga did his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Ivan Menezes – Diagio – Pune born Ivan has been heading Diageo as CEO since 2013. Having 36,000 employees and annual revenues of $21 billion, Diageo is world’s largest producer of spirits. Ivan joined Diageo in 1997.
Rakesh Kapoor – Reckitt Benckiser – With 36,000 employees and annual revenues of $13.7 billion, Reckitt Benckiser is world’s leading producer of health, hygiene and home products. Rakesh joined Reckitt Benckiser in 1987.
Sanjay Jha – Global Foundries – A semiconductor foundry that produces chips for giants like AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and STMicroelectronics, in January 2014; before that he had served as the CEO of Motorola Mobility and COO of Qualcomm. Jha was born in Bhagalpur, Bihar and holds a BS from University of Liverpool and PhD from University of Strathclyde.
Sanjay Mehrotra – co-founded flash memory storage company SanDisk in 1988 and has been its CEO since January 2011. He pursued bachelors and masters degrees at University of California, Berkley, and also went to Stanford for executive programme. Mehrotra holds several patents to his name.
Nikesh Arora – is the CEO of Softbank Internet & Media Inc, a newly-formed subsidiary of Japanese telecom giant Softbank. He is also the president and COO of Softbank Corp. With an annual package of $135 million, Arora is the third-highest paid executive in the world. Before joining Softbank, Arora was the chief business officer at Google. He holds a BTech from IT-BHU (now IIT-Varanasi), and an MBA from Northeastern University; he also holds a chief financial analyst (CFA) certificate.
George Kurian – CEO of storage and data management company NetApp in June 2015, after serving as its executive vice president of product operations for nearly two years. The 48-year-old was born in Kottayam district, Kerala, and went to pursue engineering at IIT-Madras, but left six months later to join Princeton; he also holds an MBA from Stanford.
Francisco D’Souza – Cognizant – Among the youngest CEOs in the software services sector, Francisco D’Souza is a co-founder of Cognizant and took over the reins as CEO in 2007. D’Souza was born in Kenya, where his father was serving as a diplomat with the Indian Foreign Services (IFS). He holds a BBA from University of East Asia, Macau and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; D’Souza also serves on the board of General Electric as an independent director.
Dinesh Paliwal – Harman International – is the president and CEO of Harman International, a premium audio gear brand that owns the likes of JBL, Becker, dbx, among others. Born in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, Paliwal holds a BE from IIT Roorkee, and MS and MBA from Miami University.