Laxman Narasimhan is the new Starbucks CEO; Here’s a list of Indian-origin leaders in global companies
Narasimhan joins a growing list of Indian-origin CEOs at the helm of US-based global conglomerates, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. Indra Nooyi was PepsiCo’s CEO for 12 years before retiring in 2018.
Laxman Narasimhan, a Pune University Engineering graduate who stepped down as Reckitt’s CEO, has been named the new CEO of coffee giant Starbucks.
Narasimhan joins a growing list of Indian-origin CEOs at the helm of US-based global conglomerates, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. Indra Nooyi was PepsiCo’s CEO for 12 years before retiring in 2018.
Narasimhan has been named the next CEO of the five-decade-old popular coffee chain Starbucks Coffee Company, which has 34,000 stores worldwide and is the leading roaster and retailer of specialty coffee. Narasimhan, 55, was previously the CEO of Reckitt Benckiser, a multinational consumer health, hygiene, and nutrition company based in the United Kingdom.
He will join the coffee company as the incoming CEO on October 1, after relocating from London to Seattle, and will work closely with interim CEO Howard Schultz before taking over as CEO and joining the Board on April 1, 2023.
Previously, Narasimhan held various leadership positions at PepsiCo, including global chief commercial officer, where he was in charge of the company’s long-term strategy and digital capabilities.
He was previously the CEO of PepsiCo Latin America and the CFO of PepsiCo Americas Foods, as well as the CEO of the company’s Latin America, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa operations. Prior to joining PepsiCo, Narasimhan was a senior partner at McKinsey & Company, where he was responsible for the firm’s consumer, retail, and technology practices in the United States, Asia, and India, as well as leading the firm’s thinking on the future of retail.
During his tenure with the Company, Narasimhan will receive an initial base salary of USD 1,300,000 per year, as well as an annual cash incentive target opportunity equal to 200 per cent of base salary.
People of Indian origin hold top positions across the corporate arena, in academics, the information technology field as well as scientific research among others.
The list includes Sundar Pichai who heads Google and its parent company Alphabet, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen.
Indian-origin corporates getting into the top positions began to be visible in the 1990s.
Reportedly, it all started in the mid-1990s, with the elevation of Raj Gupta as the Chairman and CEO of Rohm & Haas, RamAyer as the CEO and Chairman of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc and Rakesh Gangwal as CEO of the US Airways Group.
At the start of the 21st century, Indra Nooyi became the CEO of PepsiCo.
There’s no looking back since then. Following is a list of incumbent Indian-origin CEOs in the US:
- Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft
- Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter
- Arvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM
- Vivek Sankaran, President and CEO at Albertsons
- Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO at Micron Technology
- Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO at Adobe Inc
- CS Venkatakrishnan, CEO at Barclays
- Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet
- Punit Renjen, CEO at Deloitte
- Shar Dubey – recently relieved from her role as CEO at Match
- Sonia Syngal – recently relieved from her role as CEO at Gap
