https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/perspectives/indian-ceo-perspectives/index.html
(CNN Business)IBM tapped Arvind Krishna as its next CEO last week. And this week WeWork confirmed it hired Sandeep Mathrani as its new chief executive.
They join a growing number of global CEOs of Indian origin, according to social media, news reports and online searching (incidentally, Google is run by an Indian).
Here's who I came up with:
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet, the parent company of Google
Satya Narayana Nadella, Microsoft
Rajeev Suri, Nokia
Punit Renjen, Deloitte
Vasant "Vas" Narasimhan, Novartis
Ajaypal "Ajay" Singh Banga, Mastercard
Ivan Manuel Menezes, Diageo
Niraj S. Shah, Wayfair
Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron
George Kurian, NetApp
Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks
Dinesh C. Paliwal, Harman International Industries
A disclaimer that this is hardly complete or exhaustive. Some are the children of Indian immigrants but I include them because (another disclaimer) I am, too, and can attest to inheriting habits and experiences from my parents' generation.
To be sure, there is a risk of reading into one group's success as a case of Indian exceptionalism, which I truly do not believe. Rather, a series of external factors have contributed to the rise of the Indian CEO, which says more about the state of corporate America, a globalized workplace, technological disruption and the leaders who might prevail.
I've broken down some of these factors with the intention that the lessons within might apply to all of us. Among them:
1. An acceptance of change and uncertainty. Every company is grappling with some form of disruption. Now picture India, a country of more than 1 billion people, dozens of languages, uneven infrastructure. At every turn is uncertainty, including whether water will emerge from the tap in the morning to brush your teeth. This breeds both an acceptance of forces beyond our control and the need to persevere, despite them. It allows innovation and patience with process to coexist in a corporate bureaucracy.
2. Seeing around the corner. The ability to predict what's shaping our marketplace is a necessary trait in a leader. Indians are especially equipped, thanks to their embrace of data and constantly, perhaps unconsciously, crafting a Plan B (in case no water comes out).
First we steal your jobs, then we steal your hearts, and then steal your soul until people understand we're not H1Bs.