New Google chief joins the illustrious Indian club

 

India’s high flyers have proudly welcomed the appointment as Google’s new chief executive of Sundar Pichai, the latest home-grown engineer to rise to the top of the US corporate world.

Pichai, named head of the Internet titan on Monday, was born to humble beginnings in the southern city of Chennai and studied engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kharagpur before heading to America to further his studies and career.

Pichai, who started at Google in 2004, joins an illustrious club of Indian-origin business leaders who have made it to prestigious chief executive positions overseas, including Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo and Ajay Banga at MasterCard.

The 43-year-old also follows a well trodden path of Indians — including Microsoft boss Satya Nadella and Nokia head Rajeev Suri — who have trained at the prestigious engineering institutes, where competition for limited places is fierce.

“Congrats @sundarpichai well deserved,” Nadella posted on Twitter.

“I am sure all IITs are celebrating today. Proud of you @sundarpichai,” tweeted Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s outgoing chief technology officer who studied chemical engineering at the IIT in New Delhi.

Hundreds of thousands of aspiring engineering students sit a gruelling exam every year to battle for a place at the publicly funded IITs dotted around the country. (Tribune)