From the great Aryabhatta to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, India has been home to some of the most brilliant minds in world history.
And when it comes to doing business, Indians seem to be leading in that field, too. Stalwarts like Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra and Laxmi Mittal have made our country a force to reckon with.
Not just in India but across the globe, people of our country have risen against all odds.
So here we look at the top CEOs of Indian origin in the world:
1. Arvind Krishna – CEO, IBM Group
An alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Arvind Krishna has been with IBM for over two decades.
After completing his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Krishna’s sheer brilliance got him the recognition he thoroughly deserved.
He replaced Virginia Rometty as the next CEO of the IBM Group on Friday, January 31.
Pichai Sundararajan, an Indian American business executive, started his career with Google in 2004. The now promoted CEO of Alphabet, after the stepping down of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had initially joined as a management executive.
Born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu – the now 47 year old – is a prestigious alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and Stanford University, California.
Once responsible for building and running Microsoft’s computing platforms, Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella has been the CEO since 2014.
After completing his bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Hyderabad, Nadella went on to do an M.S in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Born into a humble Telugu family, Satya Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems before shifting gears at Microsoft.
Born to retired Indian Lieutenant General Harbhajan Singh Banga, Ajay Banga has been a pioneer for Mastercard since the 1990s.
After leading them as their President and COO, Ajaypal Singh Banga was announced as the new CEO in April, 2010.
Banga, who has been the chairman of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC), is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and the Delhi University.
Born in New Delhi and raised in Kuwait, Rajeev Suri has been the CEO of Nokia Inc. since April 2014.
After working for a conglomerate running across India and Nigeria, Suri’s hardwork brought him to Nokia in 1995 where he has been at the top of his game since then.
Based in Finland, Suri is a Singaporean citizen and is an alumni of the Manipal Institute of Technology.
After working in diverse roles in companies like Akamai Technologies and Oracle, George Curian became the Chairman and CEO of NetApp in June, 2015.
Born in Kottayam district, Kerala, he pursued engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, but left six months later to join Princeton University, where he completed his MBA.
Born in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh Nikesh Arora has bee the CEO of Palo Alto Networks since June, 2018.
After serving as a Google executive, Nikesh joined as the President of the SoftBank Group in 2014.
Coming from an air-force background, Nikesh toiled hard for his success and is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, BHU and Boston College, Northeastern University.
Having lived and worked in Australia, China, India, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States – Dinesh Paliwal is the CEO of Harman International and a board member for Nestle.
After completing his bachelor’s in engineering from the Indian Institute of Management, Roorkee, Paliwal achieved an MBA in Finance from Miami University, Ohio.
Paliwal was awarded Metro New York Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young in 2010 and was declared the Businessman of the Year by Fortune Magazine in 2014.
With 30 years of experience in the non-volatile semiconductor memory industry, Mehrotra is a pioneer by all means.
After co-founding SanDisk in 1988 and serving as their President & CEO until 2016, Mehrotra was chosen as Micron Technology’s new CEO in February, 2017.
Hailing from Delhi, he is an alumni of BITS Pilani and has a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences.
After Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey stepped down from his role, Parag Agrawal is set to take over. An IIT-Bombay graduate, Parag Agrawal served as Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer from 2018. Before Twitter, Agrawal did research internships at AT&T, Microsoft and Yahoo.