In the event of Rishi Sunak being appointed as prime minister of the UK, conversations have sparked about leaders of Indian origin who are running major global companies. Organisations including Starbucks, FedEx, Google, IBM and more are being led by individuals of Indian origin.
Here are the Indian origin CEOs behind major global corporations:
Google – Sundar Pichai
Pichai was appointed as CEO in 2015, the Indian-American was born in Madurai, India and went on to pursue his education at IIT Kharagpur, he moved to the US for further education and studied at Stanford University and Wharton.
Pichai joined Google in 2004 and has been leading as CEO from 2015 till present.
Microsoft – Satya Nadella
Nadella was appointed as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, the Indian-American was born in Hyderabad and moved to the US to pursue a degree in computer science at the University of Wisonsin-Milwaukee.
Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 and has been leading the company since 2014.
Adobe – Shantanu Narayen
Narayen was appointed as the CEO of Adobe in 2007, Indian-American was born in Hyderabad and moved to the US for his master’s degree from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
Narayen has currently been leading Adobe for over 15 years.
IBM – Arvind Krishna
Krishna was appointed as the CEO of IBM in 2020. Indian-American born in Andhra Pradesh, his father worked for the Indian Army and his mother worked for the welfare of Army widows.
He moved to US for a PhD in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a driving force behind IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat.
Albertsons – Vivek Sankaran
Sankaran joined Albertsons in 2019 and serves as the company’s CEO, he pursued his MBA at the University of Michigan after previously studying in IIT Chennai.
Sankaran’s previous employment experience includes PepsiCo foods North America and Frito-Lay. He currently leads Albertsons, the company behind subsidiaries including Safeway Inc, Kroger, Tom Thumb and more.
Micron – Sanjay Mehrotra
Mehrotra was born in Kanpur, the Indian-American was the co-founder of SanDisk where he served as president and CEO until the acquisition.
Mehrotra moved to the US when he was 18 to attend the University of California, Berkeley for a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. He became chief officer of Micron in 2017 and currently serves the position.
Chanel – Leena Nair
Nair is a British-Indian executive, she was appointed as the global CEO of Chanel. Originally from Maharashtra, she pursued an engineering degree in India and went on to become the youngest Asian woman chief human-resources officer for Unilever.
The mentee of former PepsiCo CEO, Indira Nooyi, Nair became the global CEO of Chanel in December 2019.
FedEx – Raj Subramaniam
CEO and president-elect of FedEx, Subramaniam was born in Kerala and moved to the US on a scholarship to Syracuse University for a degree in chemical engineering.
He joined FedEx in 1991 in a marketing position and was appointed as CEO in 2018.
Starbucks – Laxman Narasimhan
Current CEO Howard Schultz will continue as interim CEO until April 2023, which is when Laxman Narashimhan is set to take over.
The Indian-American was raised in Pune and moved to the US to pursue higher education in Pennsylvania. Narasimhan was previously was the CCO of PepsiCo and CEO of Reckitt.
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