Indian towns and cities that gave the world its most powerful CEOs

Indians have time and again proved themselves to be pioneers, be it in the field of science, art, sports and technology. With the progress of the 21st century, this list has gone on to include the business sphere as well. Leaders such as Sundar Pichai, Leena Nair and Satya Nadella have created a footprint in the international market as some of the world’s most powerful changemakers. But where do these leaders come from? Where did they grow up and study? Here is a list of some of the most powerful Indian-origin CEOs and where they come from:

Leena Nair of Chanel - Kolhapur, Maharashtra

Leena Nair was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. She completed her initial schooling in the state until she moved to Jharkhand to pursue an MBA. Her rise to fame included a three-decade-long stint with Unilever, where she became the first female Executive Officer. In 2021, she wrote history once again, as she became the first female CEO of Indian origin of luxury fashion brand Chanel. She is also the youngest CEO the company has ever appointed.

Parag Agrawal of Twitter - Mumbai, Maharashtra

At 37, Parag Agrawal has become the youngest CEO to lead an S&P 500 company. He took over as the CEO of Twitter after Jack Dorsey in December 2021. Agrawal is a Mumbaikar by origin with an education from IIT Bombay. He contributed to research at companies like Microsoft, Yahoo!, and AT&T Labs, before joining Twitter in 2011.

Shantanu Narayen of Adobe Inc - Hyderabad, Telangana

Shantanu Narayen of Hyderabad became the CEO of Adobe Inc—a California-based software company catering to about 12 million users across the world—in 2007. He holds a degree from Osmania University in Hyderabad, and also from Haas School of Business, University of California in Berkeley. Despite having left the country over 30 years ago, he continues to contribute to India’s digital literacy by providing free Adobe software to underprivileged students.

Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc - Chennai, Tamil Nadu

The son of an electrical engineer and a stenographer, Pichai Sundararajan was born and raised in a middle-class family in Chennai. He earned his degree from IIT Kharagpur, where he also met the love of his life, Anjali. Pichai became the CEO at Alphabet Inc and its subsidiary Google in 2019, but before that, he was also considered for the position at Microsoft in 2014.

Sanjay Mehrotra of Micron Technology Inc - Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

Sanjay Mehrotra is the CEO of Micron Technology Inc in the US, but his roots lie in Kanpur. The pursuit of education took him to the University of California in Berkeley, and in 1988, he co-founded SanDisk in California. After serving as its CEO till 2016, he transitioned into the same position at Micron Inc, where he is leading till date.

Punit Renjen of Deloitte - Rohtak, Haryana

Punit Renjen is currently heading Deloitte—one of the Big Four service firms headquartered in England—from his home in Portland, Oregon. Renjen is originally from Rohtak in Haryana, where he grew up until leaving for a master’s degree at Willamette University in Salem. In 2015, he became the first person of Asian origin to lead Deloitte.

Satya Nadella of Microsoft - Hyderabad, Telangana

Satya Nadella—one of the biggest names in Silicon Valley—is an undergraduate of the Manipal University of Technology in Karnataka. He was born to a Telugu-speaking family in Hyderabad in 1967. By 1990, he was working as an engineer at Sun Microsystems. In 2014, Nadella took over Microsoft as CEO after Steve Ballmer, and managed to triple the company’s stocks within four years.

Arvind Krishna of IBM - West Godavari, Andhra Pradesh

Another prominent name in the exhaustive list of Indian-origin CEOs leading international companies is Arvind Krishna. He was born in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. Armed with a BTech degree from IIT Kanpur, he went on to take charge of one of the world’s largest tech firms, IBM, in 2020.

Ajaypal Singh Banga of Mastercard Inc - Pune, Maharashtra

With a lineage tracing back to Jalandhar, Punjab, Ajaypal Singh Banga was born in Khadki, Pune in 1959. He pursued a degree in economics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, and an MBA at IIM Ahmedabad before he launched into a progressive career with Nestlé. He went on to run the American organisation Mastercard Inc as its CEO and Executive Chairman until January 2021.

Sharmistha ‘Shar’ Dubey of Match Group - Jamshedpur, Jharkhand

Sharmistha ‘Shar’ Dubey is the executive force behind Match Group, the holding company of 45 dating apps such as OkCupid and Tinder. Dubey was born and brought up in Jamshedpur. She studied at IIT Kharagpur with Sundar Pichai as her classmate. She then built a career spanning over a decade at Match, after which she became its CEO in 2020.

Laxman Narasimhan of Reckitt Benckiser - Pune, Maharashtra

Born and brought up in Pune, Laxman Narasimhan completed mechanical engineering from the University of Pune and got a master’s in German and finance from the University of Pennsylvania. Laxman speaks six languages and has held various leading roles around the world at companies like PepsiCo before he took over Reckitt Benckiser as CEO in 2019.

Revathi Advaithi of Flex - Chennai, Tamil Nadu

A native of Chennai, Revathi Advaithi began spearheading one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies in 2019. Alongside her role as the CEO of Flex, she is also the director for the board at Uber and Catalyst.org. She pursued mechanical engineering from BITS Pilani at a time when the field was not common among women in India, and later relocated to Oklahoma to begin a career as a shop floor supervisor.