Indians are most successful immigrants in US: Forbes

Pepsico chief executive Indira Nooyi inevitably tops the list of what Forbes calls Eight IndianFlavoured CEOs who lead US corporations with revenues of at least 2 billion as the premier business magazine chronicles the rise of Indians in corporate ranks in America The chief executive of PepsiCo would be prominent no matter what The fact that the current one Indira Nooyi is an Indian immigrant and female in case youve been living under a rock makes her all the more noteworthy it says Its not a not a surprise that were seeing Indians rise in corporate ranks Forbes quotes Richard Herman coauthor of a book on migrants to the US Immigrant Inc as saying in an article published Monday Of all the immigrant groups coming in today Indians are headandshoulders above others and this is partly because of their English language skills and also the advanced education that many of them are bringing to the US Despite these personal success stories the number of immigrants who are leading corporate America Indian or otherwise is still a tiny fraction according to Forbes But says Herman look at where the data was ten years ago and maybe it was zero or one Indian then Future CEO candidates might want to look for a tough assignment in order to break through he says Americans are having a tough time dealing with global diversity Herman adds but just look at who was running the Tarp financialrescue fund Neel Kashkari an IndianAmerican who is now joining bond giant Pimco as a managing director Of the featured eight Nooyi 53 says Herman is part of a growing trend where US companies are being created or led by foreignborn individuals who bring in something special Vikram Pandit the embattled CEO of Citigroup is the other prominent native Indian in the corner office Prior to joining the ailing bank he was president of Morgan Stanleys investment banking fixed income and capital markets businesses and cofounded and was the chairman of a hedge fund Old Lane Partners Forbes notes Third on the list is Kenyaborn Francisco DSouza heads Cognizant Technology Solutions which outsources IT services for its Western world clients DSouza 40 whose grandparents hailed from Goa in India joined the company in 1994 when it was founded and within three years had gone up the ranks to become director of North American operations Next comes Shantanu Narayen 46 at the helm at Adobe Systems The diversified software companys flagship Internet video tool is Flash At least one top boss of Indian descent is plotting a growth strategy says Forbes of Quest Diagnostics head Surya Mohapatra fifth on the list Mohapatra has raised 750 million from the capital markets for acquisitions Also featured are Dinesh Paliwal of Harman International Jai P Nagarkatti of SigmaAldrich and Abhijit Talwalkar of LSI Paliwal a native of the city of the Taj Mahal joined Harman a soundsystems company in Stamford Connecticut as chief executive in 2007 Prior to that he spent 22 years at ABB Group and set up its operations in China and north Asia Nagarkatti joined SigmaAldrich in 1976 as a development chemist and after heading the companys scientific research business was appointed COO in August 2004 Talwalkar was appointed chief executive of LSI of Milpitas California in May 2005 Earlier he was at Intels digital enterprise group He joined Intel in 1993 after stints at Sequent Computer Systems now part of IBM Bipolar Integrated Technology Inc and Lattice Semiconductor Inc u00a0