Google chief Sundar Pichai is newest member
The rise of yet another India-born-and-educated professional to the top job at an iconic global corporate is not just a matter of national pride but also a source of inspiration for the country. On Monday, Mr Pichai Sundararajan was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Google, arguably the world's best known technology giant. That not only puts him at the top of a multi-billion dollar enterprise whose annual earning is more than the entire GDP of some nations but also places him at the forefront of some of the most dynamic processes driving technological innovation in today's world.
Mr Pichai is also the newest entrant to the Global Indian CEO Club, where he joins the likes of Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Nokia's Rajeev Suri, Mastercard's Ajaypal Singh Banga, Pepsi Co's Indra Nooyi, Adobe's Shantanu Narayen and Diageo's Ivan Menezes among others at the top. What is common to all these corporate leaders, apart from their Indian birth, is that each one of them is a self-made professional. Forget about inheriting fortunes in family-run businesses, none of them was even born to particularly privileged families with proverbial silver spoons in their mouth; almost all of them went to ‘regular' Indian schools — no glamorous tags from elite heritage schools or fancy boarding schools; later, it was on their own merit that these leaders went on to study at some of India's premier institutions for higher education and professional studies.
Take Mr Pichai for example: He was born to an average middle-class working family in Chennai and went to nondescript grade schools in the city. It was through sheer hardwork and perseverance that he made it to the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, and then to Stanford University (but dropped out of his PhD programme to take up a job in Silicon Valley), after which he got a degree from the Wharton Business School. Mr Pichai joined Google in 2004 and proved his mettle with the Google Toolbar — it was not a glamorous project but crucial to the company's overall functions.
It also led to his birthing Chrome, Google's own Internet browser, now a market leader in itself. This was followed by the success of the Chromebook and later he was given additional responsibility of the Android platform. The latter was already a household name by the time Mr Pichai took it over from its founder but he has since significantly expanded its scope. In short, by the time Mr Pichai was appointed to the top job, he had successfully led some of the most important products and functions of his company and, to that end, his elevation was a natural one.
Note that it took Mr Pichai just a little more than 10 years to get to the top of a large multinational like Google. In India, this may seem like a meteoric rise but globally, this isn't hugely out-of-the-ordinary. For example, Ms Nooyi joined Pepsi Co in 1994 and was appointed president in 2001; Mr Suri started at Nokia in 1995 and was at the top job by 2014 while Mr Narayen joined Adobe in 1998 and was appointed CEO in 2007. Given how Indian corporations work, it will not be a stretch to say that if these people were employed in firms here, they'd probably be stuck in the position of mid-level managers. There is a lesson in here for India Inc in particular and the country in general.