12 most-important Indian origin tech executives in the world

[NiveRoshni]

Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella may be the most well-known Indian origin tech executives as they head two of the biggest tech companies in the world. However, apart from these two tech titans, there are other tech executives of Indian origin that hold key positions at some of the biggest tech companies in the world. As India celebrates its 74th Independence Day, we look at 12 most important tech executives in the world that are of Indian origin

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet

India-born Sundar Pichai was named as Google CEO on August 10, 2015. In December 2019, he additionally became the CEO of Alphabet Inc. He is responsible for the launch of the dominant Chrome web browser, and was previously the product head for Android, Chrome, Maps, and other popular Google products. Pichai had also been suggested as a contender for Microsoft CEO in 2014. The 47-year-old head of Google was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and pursued education at IIT Kharagpur (B Tech), Stanford (MS) and Wharton (MBA); at Wharton, he was named a Siebel Scholar and Palmer Scholar.

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Satya Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 and became the CEO of the company in 2014 succeeding Steve Ballmer. Born in Hyderabad, the 52-year-old has a BE from Manipal Institute of Technology, MS from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe

Hyderabad-born Narayen started his career at Apple. He joined Adobe in 1998 as the senior vice-president of worldwide product research and became the COO in 2005 and CEO in 2007. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Osmania University, an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MS from Bowling Green State University. In the year 2018, Narayen was ranked on 12th position on Fortune's list of Businessperson of the year.

Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM

An electrical engineer from IIT Kanpur, Arvind Krishna was appointed CEO of IBM earlier this year. He has been with IBM for almost 30 years and before becoming CEO he was a senior vice president with the company.

Jayashree Ullal, president and CEO, Arista Network

Jayshree Ullal is the president and CEO of Arista Networks, a cloud networking company. Ullal began her career with engineering and strategy positions at AMD and Fairchild Semiconductor. She was also named by Forbes magazine as "one of the top five most influential people in the networking industry".

Dinesh Paliwal, president and CEO, Harman International

62-year-old Paliwal is the President and CEO of Harman International. Born in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, Paliwal holds a BE from IIT Roorkee, and MS and MBA from Miami University. Before joining Harman, he spent 22 years with ABB Group, where he last held the dual role of President of ABB Group with responsibility for the company's global P&L, and Chairman/CEO - ABB North America.

Nikesh Arora, CEO, Palo Alto Networks

Nikesh Arora took the role of CEO and chairman at Palo Alto Networks in June 2018. Prior to this he has worked with Google and SoftBank. Born to an Indian Air Force Officer, Arora holds a degree from Boston College and an MBA from Northeastern University.

Neha Narkhede, CEO and co-founder Confluent

Narkhede is the co-founder and CEO of data analytics firm Confluent. She holds a graduate from University of Pune and was also named in 2018 among the 50 most powerful women in technology by Forbes. Narkhede worked with LinkedIn for four years and before that with Oracle for two years.

Parag Agrawal, CTO, Twitter

An engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Tiwari has been with Twitter since 2011 and is currently their chief technical officer. Prior to this Tiwari has also worked with Microsoft, AT&T and Yahoo's research teams.

Anjali Sud, CEO, Vimeo

Anjali Sud was appointed as the CEO of Vimeo a popular open video platform in 2017. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and before joining Vimeo she had worked with Amazon and Time Warner.

Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO, Micron Technology

Sanjay Mehrotra -- who was also CEO of Sandisk earlier – is the current CEO of Micron Technology. Mehrotra is an engineering graduate from BITS, Pilani and was also a Board member of Western Digital. He was appointed CEO of Micron in 2017.

George Kurian, CEO and president, NetApp

In 2015, George Kurian became the CEO and president of NetApp storage and data management company. Before joining NetApp, Kurian was vice president and general manager of the Application Networking and Switching Technology Group at Cisco Systems. Born in Kottayam district, Kerala, he pursued engineering at IIT-Madras, but left six months later to join Princeton University; he also holds an MBA degree from Stanford.