Indian CEOs manage companies worth $6 trillion in the USA
In the United States, Indian chief executives run 44 public companies with a total market value of $5.5 trillion, according to a study by Global Indian Times. Indians are also chair or presidents of ten public companies with a market value of $585 billion. In addition, they are CEOs of eight large and medium sized private companies with an estimated value of $255 billion. Indians also own and run several thousand small private businesses in the U.S., from shops selling newspapers and cold drinks, motels and hotels to doctors and dentists practices.
The CEOs of the public and large and medium private companies receive lucrative financial rewards, especially if they are also the founders. They collectively own stock in their companies worth at least $14 billion. But their net worth is far higher, given additional earnings from previous sales of stocks and from high annual salaries and bonuses.
Most of the Indian CEOs run technology or technology-based companies, many of them with head offices located in Silicon Valley, California. For instance, Sundar Pichai is CEO of Alphabet, parent of Google which is based in Mountain View. It has a market value of $1.9 trillion. Pichai’s net worth is estimated to be $1.5 billion, including ownership of $530 million in Alphabet stock.
Shantanu Narayen is CEO of Adobe Systems, a publishing, graphic design and photoshop software company. It is based in San Jose and has a market value of $302 billion. Nikesh Arora is CEO of cyber security firm Palo Alto Networks (PANW), with a market value of $50 billion. Both Adobe and PANW are based in the Silicon Valley, in San Jose and Santa Clara respectively. Narayen owns Adobe stock worth $230 million while Arora owns $260 million in PANW stock.
Satya Nadella runs Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington and has a market value of $2.3 trillion. Microsoft and Alphabet together account for nearly three quarters of the market value of U.S. companies run by Indian CEOs.
There are a few medical companies run by Indians. Kevin Lobo is CEO of Stryker, which sells orthopedic, surgical and neurotechnology devices. Based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, it has a market value of $101 billion. Francis de Souza is CEO of San Diego, California based Illumina, a biotechnology firm that provides solutions for genetic and genomic analysis. It has a market value of $70 billion and de Souza owns $25 million in stock..
Most Indian CEOs are engineers
Most of the Indian CEOs studied engineering, many of them graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). Arvind Krishna, who runs Armonk, New York based IBM, is a graduate of IIT, Kanpur. He earned a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign. IBM has a market value of $127 billion.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, holds a Bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur, 1993. While at IIT, he learned computer programming on his own, including in the now obsolete Fortran language. On the campus, he met Anjali, a fellow student and his future wife. Pichai earned a Master of Science in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, 1995; and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, 2002.
Sharmistha (Shar) Dubey, CEO of Match, which owns online dating sites, also studied at an IIT. At IIT, “It was hard to be the only girl in a class of 80 to 100 boys.” Dubey told DallasInnovates. “I remember another girl who was two years senior to me. And she said, ‘If you quit, you’re the only one that’s going to lose. So grit it up.'” Match, based in Dallas, Texas, has a market value of $44 billion and Dubey owns stock worth $35 million.
Running a furniture store
Not all IIT graduates or Indian engineers, who are CEOs in the U.S., run technology or technology-based companies. Vivek Sankaran is CEO of Boise, Idaho based Albertsons, a chain of roughly 2,300 grocery stores with a market value of $14 billion. He owns shares worth $60 million.
In 1985, he graduated with a BS in mechanical engineering from IIT, Madras. In 1988, he earned a Master’s in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Earlier, Sankaran worked at PepsiCo, the beverage and snacks company and at McKinsey, the consulting company. When he was appointed head of PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay snacks division, he told his wife there was a 50 percent chance he would be fired, according to DMagazine. "Most consultants don’t end up being good operators," since leading, versus advising, requires a different skill set and because consultants know very little about business operations.
Another Indian CEO of a retail business is Sonia Syngal, 50, at Gap, a vendor of jeans and other apparel, based in San Francisco. The company operates about 3,200 owned stores and about 600 franchised stores, mostly in the U.S. and Canada, employing over 130,000. Gap has a market value of $9 billion and Syngal owns shares worth $27 million.
Syngal holds a master's degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kettering University, in Flint, Michigan. Syngal emigrated to the U.S. from Canada. She was born in India and moved to Canada with her parents, Sushma and Satya Syngal.
Farooq Kahwari runs Ethan Allen, a furniture manufacturer and retailer with a market value of $613 million. By the time he was 17, he helped his mother survive shock therapy, joined student activists in street demonstrations, and faced down a gun-wielding security officer.
After emigrating to the U.S., Kathwari worked as a bookkeeper and earned a degree from New York University. He launched his first entrepreneurial venture selling Kashmiri crafts out of his Brooklyn apartment.
Second generation Indian American CEOs
A few of the CEOs are second generation Indians in the U.S. Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo, for instance, grew up in Flint, Michigan, where her Indian immigrant father operates a plastics recycling plant. Vimeo, a platform for creating and posting videos, has a market value of $6 billion. Sud’s stock holdings in Vimeo is worth roughly $100 million.
She holds a B.Sc. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She graduated from Phillips Andover, a private high school in suburban Boston.
One advice Sud got from her father, which she passes onto others, is “to live outside of your comfort zone,” she told Business Insider. In other words, “put yourself in positions where you might not have a ton of experience."
Ann Mukherjee overcame tragedy and misfortune
Among the private companies, Punit Renjen is CEO of Deloitte, the New York based accounting, consulting and business services company. In fiscal 2021, it had $50 billion in revenues and has over 330,000 employees worldwide. Deloitte is estimated to be valued at $215 billion, accounting for about 85% of the estimated value of U.S. private companies run by Indians.
Renjen joined Deloitte in 1999. Born and raised in India, he moved to the United States to study for a masters degree in management at Willamette University, Oregon.
Since 2019, Milind Pant has been CEO of Amway Global, another private company. It sells consumer products directly to consumers. Amway had $8.4 billion in revenues in 2019. Pant serves as a Vice Chair on the U.S.-India Business Council Global Board of Directors.
Earlier he worked at Pizza Hut International, part of Yum Brands, and Unilever, the global consumer goods company. He holds a Master of International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and a Master of Management Studies from Birla Institute of Technology & Sciences, India.
Nandita Bakhshi (in photo) also studied international relations in India. She is the CEO of Bank of the West, based in San Francisco, California, which is owned by BNP Paribas, the French bank. She is also the CEO of BNP’s U.S. operations. She started her career in the U.S. as a part-time bank teller in New York.
Bakhshi, 62, is unique among Indian CEOs, as well as among successful Indian professionals in the U.S., in that she did not earn an advanced degree in America. She is also unique among bank CEOs in the U.S. or elsewhere in that she does not have an MBA credential. She holds a Master of Arts in international relations from Jadavpur University, India, and a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Calcutta.
Also, from Calcutta, now Kolkata, is Ann Mukherjee, 55, chief executive of Pernod Ricard North America. It owns 16 of the top 100 global alchohol brands, including Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s, Absolut Vodka and Beefeater gin. North America is Ricard’s biggest market and its stock is valued at $61 billion.
In 2017, chatting with students at the business school at the University of Wisconsin -Madison, Mukherjee displayed profiles of two women. One faced misfortune and tragedy—sexual abuse, early death of a parent, violent marriage. The second one lived the American dream—good education, happy marriage, children, success. “How many think both women were effective leaders?” Mukherjee asked. The answer, she said, is that “woman A and woman B are the same person. And that person is me.”
Cricket fans
By far, cricket is the most popular sport in India and so most Indian CEOs, who emigrated to the U.S., continue to be big cricket fans. For instance, growing up in Hyderabad, India, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s early ambition was to be a professional cricketer.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology, affiliated with Mangalore University, India; a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee; and an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1996. Nadella’s net worth is estimated to be at least $800 million, including ownership of $600 million in Microsoft stock.
Another cricket fan is Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, who plays the game on his visits to India. Flying to the U.S. from India, to study at Stanford University, was Pichai’s first airplane flight.
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