Indian-Origin CEOs Dominate Global Corporate Leadership
Indian-origin CEOs have made significant strides in leading some of the world's biggest companies. According to The Economic Times, there are at least 18 Indian-origin CEOs currently holding top positions. One such example is Anil Chakravarthy, who was named Adobe's next president and CEO on September 3, 2026, effective December 1. He will succeed Shantanu Narayen, who is moving to executive chair after more than 18 years as CEO.
Chakravarthy studied computer science at IIT Varanasi before earning a master's and PhD from MIT. His career includes stints at McKinsey, VeriSign, and Symantec, where he held senior roles. He became CEO of Informatica and later joined Adobe in 2020, leading its Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations.
Other notable Indian-origin CEOs include Satya Nadella, who has been Microsoft's CEO since February 2014; Sundar Pichai, who leads Google and Alphabet as CEO; Arvind Krishna, who became IBM's CEO in April 2020; Leena Nair, who was appointed global CEO of Chanel in January 2022; Raj Subramaniam, who took over as FedEx CEO in June 2022; George Kurian, who has been NetApp's CEO since June 2015; and Revathi Advaithi, who leads Flex as CEO.
The list also includes Vasant Narasimhan, who was appointed Novartis' CEO in February 2018; C. S. Venkatakrishnan, who became Barclays' group CEO in November 2021; and Sanjay Mehrotra, who has been Micron's president and CEO since 2017.
Kunal Shah, an Indian entrepreneur known for founding FreeCharge and CRED, announced that he would step away from his operating role at CRED to join Meta as the Head of WhatsApp. This move marks a significant shift in the leadership of one of the world's largest messaging platforms.