With the appointment of Parag Agarwal last month as Twitter’s new CEO, the list of Indian-origin CEOs of tech companies is expanding. Satya Nadella at Microsoft, Sundar Pichai at Google, Arvind Krishna at IBM, Shantanu Narayen at Adobe, George Kurien at Netapp are rocking the technology market the world over with their leadership and vision.
But apart from tech companies, many Indian origin CEOs are also spearheading non-tech organizations, who are market leaders and global giants. Let’s take a look at them.
1. Punit Renjen-Deloitte
Deloitte, with its headquarters in London, in the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professionals, globally. And heading it is Punit Renjen, an alumnus of Willamette University. He joined Deloitte as an associate consultant in 1980s and rose through the ranks to become the CEO of the firm, having served the company for 32 years.
2. Sonia Syngal- GAP
One of the few female CEOs to be featured in Fortune 500, Sonia Syngal was born in India but moved to Canada and then to USA, as a child. She has served at Sun Microsystems and Ford Motors before joining GAP Inc in 2004. After 16 years with GAP, she was named the President and CEO of the company in March 2020.
3. Laxman Narsimhan-Reckitt
Formerly the chief commercial officer at PepsiCo, Laxman Narasimhan is the current CEO of Reckitt Benckiser. The British multinational which deals in consumer goods has its headquarters in Slough, England. A mechanical engineer from Pune and MBA graduate in Finance from Wharton, Laxman has worked with McKinsey for 19 years and then succeeded Rakesh Kapoor as the CEO of Reckitt.
4.Vasant Narsimhan-Novartis
Vasant Narasimhan is an American physician born to Indian parents and the Chief Executive Officer of the Swiss multinational pharmaceutical corporation Novartis. Having earned his bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the University of Chicago, and also his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, he joined Novartis in 2005 and went on to become the CEO of the company in 2017
5. Ivan Menezes-Diageo
Diageo PLC, the multinational beverage company from London has its presence in more than 180 countries and was the world’s largest distiller till April 2017. The company is being headed by Ivan Menezes since July 2013. Menezes was born in Pune and was educated at St Stephen’s College Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad along with Kellogg School of Management. He joined Diageo in 1997 and has held various positions before becoming the CEO of the company.
Along with these the most recent Indian to be appointed as a multinational’s CEO is Leena Nair, who will head Chanel as the CEO, starting January 2022.
