When OpenAI announced the appointment of Arvind KC as its new Chief People Officer, it signaled the growing bench strength of Indian-origin executives in senior roles in global big tech circles, especially in the AI function. From OpenAI to Anthropic to Apple and Meta, there is a big crop of Indian-origin professionals in the influential C-suite.
OpenAI alone has made a few marquee appointments of Indian-origin executives at senior management positions including Vijaye Raji (CTO-Applications), Srinivas Narayanan (CTO-B2B Applications) and Uday Ruddarraju (Head of Compute Infrastructure).
As for its arch rival Anthropic, Rahul Patil was appointed as the company’s CTO in October 2025 to oversee infrastructure, compute, and engineering as it scales its Claude AI models.
This crop mirrors the growth of Indian talent of yesteryears such as Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, and others, who eventually went on to lead world’s top tech giants like Microsoft, Alphabet and Adobe.
Desi clout
Beyond just pure play AI companies, tech majors have also roped in desi executives to head its AI divisions. Apple recently announced Amar Subramanya as Vice President (VP) of AI. In his role, the Bangalore University graduate is leading Apple Foundation Models, ML research and AI Safety and Evaluation.
Meta’s top team includes Aparna Ramani, who has been the VP of Engineering at the company since 2016 and is now leading its AI Infrastructure teams. Likewise, Ashok Elluswamy is the VP of AI Software at Tesla and Deepu Talla leads the Robotics & Edge AI division of Meta as its Vice-President and General Manager.
Most recently, in a major move, Microsoft’s Nadella announced that Indian-origin Asha Sharma will become Executive VP and CEO of Microsoft Gaming.
Previously at the online gaming major Roblox, OpenAI’s new people head Arvind KC has earlier held leadership roles at Google, Palantir and Facebook (now Meta) among others. A graduate in chemical engineering from the University Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, Arvind completed his MBA in operations management from Santa Clara University.
Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm, believes that these appointments are driven by a pattern of deep technical expertise, especially in the AI domain.
“These executives typically bring a strong pedigree in terms of qualifications, experience and hands-on product work across tech stacks. Their prior leadership exposure, combined with proximity to global enterprise ecosystems, makes them a clear fit for senior roles. A higher education mandate from the US also strengthens their credibility for such positions,” he added.
Published on February 26, 2026