Indians are excelling everywhere in a variety of fields -- particular technology. Before today, three of the world¡¯s biggest tech companies were led by Indian-origin CEOs.
Google¡¯s parent company Alphabet is in the reigns of Sundar Pichai, Microsoft is being headed by Satya Nadella, whereas Adobe is being led by Shantanu Narayen.?
However, today, reports revealed that Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President of IBM will be succeeding Ginni Rometty as the CEO.
But how did these legends start their journey? How were they able to achieve what they¡¯ve achieved today? Let¡¯s find out.
Arvind Krishna was born in Andhra Pradesh and completed his graduation in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1985. He later went on to complete his PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana¨CChampaign.
He got hired at IBM in 1990. He started his journey building data-related business. Post that he was promoted to the position of general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group's development and manufacturing organization. He has also co-authored 15 patents and written for journals ACM and IEEE.?
Currently, he¡¯s the Senior Vice President taking care of IBM Cloud, IBM Security and Cognitive Applications business, and IBM Research. The enterprise currently valued at $140 billion. He is expected to take over controls of IBM from Ginni Rometty in April.
Sundar Pichai is currently the CEO of Alphabet -- the parent company that owns Google, Android, and other Google brands.?
He was born in Madhurai, Tamil Nadu and completed his graduation in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur. He further went ahead and got an M.S. degree in the field of material sciences and engineering from Stanford University in the US. He¡¯s also completed MBA from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
He wasn¡¯t always in the field of tech and IT. He started his career working in engineering and product management at Applied Materials as well as management consulting at McKinsey & Company.?
He joined Google in 2004 where he headed product management and was key in the creation of the browser we all love -- Google Chrome. He took control of Android in 2013 and took the reigns of Google in 2015. He recently got promoted to being the CEO of Alphabet in December 2019. Google recently also crossed a trillion-dollar valuation.?
Satya Narayana Nadella was born in 1967 and raised in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. He completed his bachelor¡¯s in Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, in 1988. Later he went on to complete his M.S in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin¨CMilwaukee in 1990. He also completed his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business.?
Before he entered Microsoft in 1992, he started his career at Sun Microsystems. When he came to Microsoft, the first-ever project that he worked on was the failed Windows NT. Over time, he has made some major transitions at Microsoft, including moving the company¡¯s focus to cloud computing -- something that saved the enterprise from falling into an abyss.
Over the years, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Research and Development for the Online Services Division and VP of Microsoft Business Division. Later he became the president of Microsoft¡¯s Server and Tools business that transitioned the company to cloud infrastructure and services.
He took control of Microsoft in 2014 in a time when Windows Phone wasn¡¯t doing very great and it was struggling with its cloud computing business.? He made the controversial decision to allow open-source competitor Linux, which Ballmer had once called "cancer", to operate on Azure. Since then, the platform has shown impressive growth, though it still trails Amazon's AWS, and the revenue from is a massive chunk of their yearly earnings. Today Microsoft is the third trillion-dollar company in the world.
Shantanu Narayen, CEO of designing and editing software Adobe, might not be a popular name for many, but he was the first Indian-origin CEO to be appointed in a tech company.?
He grew up in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. He¡¯s completed his bachelor¡¯s degree in electronics and communication engineering from University College of Engineering, Osmania University in Hyderabad. He further went on to complete his MBA from the UCLA Berkeley, as well as a master¡¯s degree in computer science from Bowling Green State University, Ohio.
He started his career working for Cupertino giant Apple. Post that he was hired as a director of desktop collab products for Silicon graphics. After that, he went on to form his own company Pictra Inc that allowed people to share digital photos using the internet.?
He joined Adobe in 1998 as a Senior Vice President of worldwide product research and was later promoted to executive vice president, and then CEO of Adobe in the year 2007 at the age of 45 years, succeeding Bruce Chizen.
Adobe has crossed $100 billion valuation in 2018, while also becoming a Fortune 400 company.?