Why the West is in love with India's IT wizards
1. Microsoft - Satya Nadella
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Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992, and nearly two decades later, became the CEO of the world's biggest software company. Presently the highest paid executive in America, the engineering graduate from Manipal Institute of Technology, Karnataka grew up in Hyderabad, where his father, Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandher, was a civil servant in the Indian Administrative Service. Nadella later went on to receive an MS degree in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
2. Google - Sundar Pichai
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The IIT Kharagpur-grad, Pichai grew up in a two-room home in Chennai with his mother, father and younger brother. After earning a scholarship to Stanford, dropping out and eventually getting an MBA degree from Wharton and joining Google in 2004, he is now the newest CEO of the company. Products insider Pichai's watch include Google Chrome and Android.
3. Adobe - Shantanu Narayen
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Narayen earned his position as the CEO of Adobe in 2007, just nine years after he joined Adobe. An engineering graduate from Osmania University, Narayen, who grew up in Hyderabad was the second son of a mother who taught American literature and a father who ran a plastics company. He went on to get an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, and masters in computer science from Bowling Green State University.
4. Cisco Systems - Padmasree Warrior
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Born and brought up in Vijaywada, Warrior has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from IIT-Delhi and a master's degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University. She joined Motorola in 1984. In 2007, Warrior resigned from Motorola and is presently the chief technology officer (CTO) at Cisco Systems. Under her CTO-ship (chief technology and strategy officer), Motorola was awarded the 2004 National Medal of Technology by the president of the United States for the first time and she was featured by Forbes as the 71st most powerful woman in the world. She stepped down as CTO of Cisco in June this year, after serving under that designation for seven years.
5. SanDisk - Sanjay Mehrotra
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Mehrotra is the co-founder and CEO of SanDisk, a position he was given in 2011. A holder of bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Narayen has also completed the Stanford Executive Programme. He is the named inventor on more than 70 patents and has published articles in the area of non-volatile memory design and flash memory systems.
6. SoftBank Corp - Nikesh Arora
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Arora graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University and an MBA from Northeastern University, Massachusetts. He was paid a record amount of $135 million to lead Softbank's operations, which made him third highest paid executive in the world. He is presently the COO of SoftBank Corp and CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media Inc.