Magic mantra for Indians reaching the top in US companies

BENGALURU/ MUMBAI: The announcements are coming fast and furious. Almost every alternate month, it seems, an Indian-born American is being elevated to the corner suite in America Inc, particularly in the technology space.

Sundar Pichai's CEO announcement comes days after NetApp named Bengaluruborn George Kurian as CEO. His near-identical twin Thomas Kurian was named Oracle president this January.

Last year came the blockbuster news of Satya Nadella becoming only the third Microsoft CEO. Soon after, fellow Manipal-educated Rajeev Suri was made Nokia CEO. Nikesh Arora, SoftBank president and COO, is expected to succeed its legendary founder Masayoshi Son.

These announcements have added velocity to the growing conversations about the rise of India-born CEOs leading some of the world's most famous technology brands, including Adobe and Sandisk.

Naveen Tewari, co-founder & CEO, InMobi, and an IIT Kanpur and Harvard B-School alumnus, believes "hunger with humility" is what's getting Indians to top positions in technology . "There's a latent hunger in Indians to show success on the global stage," he says. "This wasn't easy when we were a closed-market environment. We have the ability to blend into different cultures. Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are people with such humility."

Former Aadhaar chairman and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani says the ability of these people "to understand technology and the rapidly changing milieu in which it operates because of their earlier experience of dealing with uncertainty while studyingliving in India," is a big differentiator. These CEOs -products of India's elite technology institutes where acceptance rates are even lower than Ivy League schools -are "the best of the best."

Gurnek Bains, founder and chairman of YSC, among the world's leading corporate psychology consultancies, says: "The best Indian leaders can be highly successful on the global stage.Our research indicates that compared to Chinese or leaders from emerging markets, Indians combine strong strategic skills with high levels of intellectual flexibility. No other culture has this combination, essential to largescale businesses operating in a fast-changing world."

Bains says that Indian leaders have something deeply ingrained in the Indian cultural DNA -acceptance of diversity and ability to work with multiple cultures.Leaders from many cultures struggle with the flexibility required to engage diverse groups. They rank "high on achievement drive -probably a function of the highly competitive Indian system."

Last year, Wall Street Journal, soon after the Nadella announcement, argued income arbitrage was one reason Indians outrank the Chinese in the CEO sweepstakes in America. Chinese companies tend to pay their director-level managers almost on par with American ones, it said. Fluency in English, being raised in a democracy which allows people to speak their minds and diversity , were listed as the other reasons.