Indian-Origin CEOs Dominate Global Tech Scene
Indian-origin CEOs are leading some of the world's biggest companies, according to recent reports. Adobe has named Anil Chakravarthy its next president and CEO, effective December 1, 2026. He will succeed fellow Indian-origin executive Shantanu Narayen, who is moving to executive chair after more than 18 years as CEO.
Chakravarthy was born in India and studied computer science at IIT Varanasi before earning a master's and PhD from MIT. He worked at McKinsey and held senior roles at VeriSign and Symantec before becoming CEO of Informatica. He joined Adobe in 2020 and now leads its Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations.
Other notable Indian-origin CEOs include Satya Nadella, who was born and raised in Hyderabad and studied electrical engineering at Mangalore University. He became Microsoft's CEO in February 2014 and later became chairman. Sundar Pichai grew up in Chennai and studied metallurgical engineering at IIT Kharagpur before moving to the US for further studies.
Pichai joined Google in 2004 and rose through product leadership, including Chrome. He became Google's CEO in 2015 and Alphabet's CEO in 2019, succeeding Larry Page in the latter role. Arvind Krishna was born in India and studied electrical engineering at IIT Kanpur before pursuing postgraduate studies in the US.
Krishna joined IBM in 1990 and rose through its technology businesses, eventually leading Cloud and Cognitive Software. He became IBM's CEO in April 2020, succeeding Ginni Rometty. Leena Nair was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, and studied engineering at Walchand College and later earned an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur.
Nair spent nearly three decades at Unilever, rising from management trainee to chief human resources officer. Chanel appointed her global CEO in January 2022, bringing her from Unilever into the luxury industry.