Nadella, Pichai, Narasimhan: Indian-origin CEOs at the helm of American cos

Starbucks Corporation, on Thursday, named Laxman Narasimhan as their next chief executive officer (CEO). He was previously the CEO of Reckitt Benckiser.

Here is a look at famous Indian CEOs at the helm of major American companies.

Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc

The IIT-Kharagpur graduate replaced Google’s co-founder Larry Page to become Google’s CEO in 2015. He was made the CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, in 2020.

Pichai, born on June 10, 1972, in Chennai, led the product management efforts for developing Google Chrome and Chrome OS. He was also primarily responsible for the development of Google Drive.

Parag Agrawal, Twitter

The IIT-Bombay and Stanford alumnus replaced Jack Dorsey to become the CEO of Twitter on November 29, 2021. He has been the chief technology officer (CTO) at Twitter since 2017.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft

Nadella, who joined Microsoft as a young engineer in 1992, took over as the company’s CEO in 2014. He spearheaded the early versions of Microsoft Office, Xbox Live, and the Azure cloud platform at Microsoft.

After becoming the CEO, Nadella introduced hackathons and is reportedly working on getting rid of bureaucracy and short-sightedness.

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe Inc

Narayen has been the company’s CEO, chairman and president since 2007. Before that, he was the chief operating officer (COO) for two years.

After graduating from Osmania University in Hyderabad, Narayen went to the US for higher studies. He has worked at Apple and co-founded Pictra Inc. In 1998, Narayen joined Adobe as the senior vice president.

Arvind Krishna, IBM

The IIT-Kanpur graduate became the CEO of the tech giant in 2020. He joined IBM in 1990. Before 2020, he was the director of research in the company.

The company’s 2019 deal with Red Hat, an open-source technology firm, has been credited to Krishna. It was the biggest purchase in the history of the company.

Raj Subramaniam, FedEx

The IIT-Bombay graduate was appointed as the president and the CEO of FedEx on March 29, 2022. He has been in the company for over 30 years.

Hailing from Thiruvananthapuram, Subramaniam has held various operational roles in the company.

Leena Nair, Chanel

Nair became the first woman ever to become the CEO of Chanel on December 14, 2021. Hailing from Maharashtra, Nair was the head of human resources at Unilever London. She started in India as a trainee. Currently, she is a British citizen.

CS Venkatakrishnan, Barclays

MIT-educated Venkatakrishnan became the first CEO of colour at Barclays on November 1, 2021, after the sudden resignation of Jes Stanley. He joined the company in 2016.

Before Barclays, he served at JPMorgan Chase for 20 years.

Sonia Syngal, Gap

Syngal became the CEO of the company on March 23, 2020. She joined the firm in 2014. Before Gap, she led the Gap-owned Old Navy for four years.

Laxman Narasimhan, Starbucks

Narasimhan will join the company in October but will only hold the position of CEO from April 2023 after learning more about the company.

In 2019, he joined Reckitt and was the first foreigner to hold the position of CEO at the company. He has previously worked at PepsiCo as the chief commercial officer.