Indians at top: 10 global chiefs managing over $400 Billion business
Monday, 01 August 2011, 15:21 IST
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Besides Indian-origin persons in their leadership teams, the other common factor for many of these companies is their focus on new frontiers for business growth. Also, many of them are into consumer-focused businesses and are looking to target the growing purchasing power of Indian middle-class in a big way. Global consultancy major Deloitte's Senior Director (Human Capital Services) P Thiruvengadam said that the rise of Indians to high levels in global corporations is no more limited to the US, but is also happening in Europe and other places where English is not the main language. "Our country's education system is good... then, Indians are by nature oriented to do things (in a good manner) in whatever they want to do," he added. Executive search firm GlobalHunt's Director Sunil Goel said that professionals in India have become global professionals and "they have capabilities, skills and wide exposure to manage cross geographical business and they are being identified by many of the global giants for top roles." Not surprisingly, most Indian-origin persons holding top positions at global giants have risen through ranks in their professional career, with the sole exception of steel giant ArcelorMittal, which also happens to be promoted by Mittal. The list includes food and beverage majorPepsiCo with Indra Nooyi as Chairman and CEO, FMCG giant Unilever as Harish Manwai as its global COO, IT firmAdobe having Shantanu Narayen as CEO, Mastercard with Ajay Banga as its chief andSanjay Jha heading Motorola Mobility. There is also Ajit Jain, who heads reinsurance business of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway empire and has been termed as most productive CEO of his group by the legendary investor himself. Besides, his name has been doing the rounds as potential successor of Buffett for a long time.
Among others, Cisco has Padmasree Warrior as its Chief Technology Officer, HP has Vyomesh Joshi as Executive Vice President, Sanjay Khosla heads Kraft Foods' developing market business, Google has Nikesh Arora as Chief Business Officer and private equity major Clayton, Dubilier and Rice LLC (CDR) has Manvinder (Vindi) Singh Banga as its operating partner. Vindi Banga has previously held top level positions at Unilever, while his brother Ajay Banga, now with Mastercard, was previously retail banking head of Citigroup. In the past, there have been many other Indians at the top positions, such as Arun Sarin as CEO UK-based telecom giant Vodafone. Also, Europe's top business school Insead has Dipak Jain as its head, while Harvard has Nitin Nohria as its dean.
Source: PTI
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