Indian Tech Honchos

10 Austin South Asian | July 2021 Move Over Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai And Shantanu Narayan: Meet The New, Unstoppable Indian Tech Honchos On World Map

NEW DELHI – It’s time to move over for Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai or Adobe’s Shantanu Narayan as new faces have joined the high-profile league of Indian American-led businesses, calling the shots in Silicon Valley and leading the global digital transformation wave.

The latest to join the elite tech CEOs’ club is Rajesh Nambiar, currently the chairman and managing director of Cognizant India, who has replaced Malcolm Frank, executive vice president and president, Digital Business and Technology, at the IT major.

Nambiar, who developed and led Operation C3 (Cognizant Combats COVID-19), brings deep knowledge of applications, data, AI, analytics, infrastructure, cloud, and consulting to his new role that began from June 4.

In a short span of time, Nambiar has established himself as a trusted leader among the 200,000 associates of Cognizant in India. “Living and working in India, which I will continue to do, has helped me deeply understand our company’s strong operating model and how we deliver value to clients,” he said in an internal note after his elevation to the top role on May 28.

Earlier in his career, Nambiar served as the global leader of IBM Application Services, where he was responsible for an $8 billion P&L that included data, AI, and analytics, oversaw the building of technology practices offering a range of applications, and managed profitable delivery for thousands of clients.

He joins Arvind Krishna, the newly appointed CEO of the world’s oldest technology company IBM, taking the Indian talent to new heights.

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Krishna replaced Virginia Rometty as the CEO of the IBM Group.

Last month, enterprise software major VMware announced the appointment of Raghu Raghuram as its new CEO and member of the Board of Directors, effective from June 1.

“I am thrilled to have Raghuram step into the role of CEO at VMware.

Throughout his career, he has led with integrity and conviction, playing an instrumental role in the success of VMware,” said Michael Dell, chairman of the VMware Board of Directors.

The big change came as Dell Technologies announced to spin out VMware – a move that will generate more than $9 billion for the company that acquired VMware as part of the $58 billion EMC acquisition (announced as $67 billion) in 2015.

VMware also appointed Sumit Dhawan as president who will lead all go-to-market functions including worldwide sales, worldwide partner and commercial organization, customer experience and success, marketing, and communications.

Another recent name is Indian American Thomas Kurian, former Oracle president of product development and a respected technologist, who is now leading Google Cloud.

“We have always been bullish on India, and you will see more investment coming from us towards that direction. India offers a great opportunity where Google Cloud Platform with its latest agile, secure and scalable offerings can help enterprises, SMBs and the growing startup ecosystem amid the government’s call for digital transformation,” Kurian told IANS recently.

Google Cloud in February this year announced that Bikram Singh Bedi, who set up the Amazon Web Services operations in India, will succeed Karan Bajwa as its new managing director for India.

Bajwa has already been elevated to become the new leader for Asia Pacific and is leading all regional revenue and go-to-market operations for Google Cloud, including on Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace.

Google Cloud also continues to invest in India and is on track to launch its Delhi cloud region in India this year — it’s second after Mumbai which was launched in 2017. (Courtesy: https://www.indiawest.com/)

Helping Small Businesses Thrive In Today’s Digital World

Small businesses were hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with nearly 10 million American small businesses closing their doors at least temporarily over the past 15 months.

Despite an uncertain economy, small business owners were resilient, creative and agile, shifting their business models to take advantage of e-commerce, many for the first time.

Before COVID-19, more than one in three small businesses had never reported a digital sale. Today, nearly seven out of eight small businesses are selling goods and services online.

For the millions of resilient small businesses still operating, the mass move to online and mobile shopping ushers in a new era of opportunity. At the same time, additional resources will be needed to support them.

“For over a year, small businesses have faced one unimaginable chal-

lenge after another,” says Mike Katz, executive vice president, TMobile for Business. “At a time when mobile connectivity and internet access are required to advertise services, sell products and interact with customers, no

small business should be without these necessary resources.” business, T-Mobile is offering the following solutions and benefits, available today:

• New smartphone plans. Staying viable in a mobile-first world requires affordable connectivity. To that end, T-Mobile is offering new smartphone plans purpose-built for business.

Every plan includes unlimited talk, text, and data over America’s largest, fastest, and most reliable 5G network, and high-speed mobile hotspot data to power whole teams on-the-go.

• High-speed internet. As bad as broadband access can be for consumers who must deal with highprices and sparse competition, it’s often actually worse for small businesses. vice levels as residential plans, but for often twice the price. Small Business Internet from T-Mobile delivers fast, reliable connectivity without annual contracts or costly surprises, along with tech support from dedicated experts.

• Digital outreach. Today, twothirds of Facebook users visit a local business page at least once weekly.

In a world that packed a decade of digital transformation into the last year, it often takes digital savvy and the ability to reach customers online to succeed.

Through a new program, Facebook Advertising on Us, small businesses can receive up to three one-onone consultations with a Facebook Marketing Expert, along with educational resources.