Pune Uni to Starbucks CEO: Laxman Narasimhan's road to becoming latest Indian global CEO

Coffee giant Starbucks Corporation has appointed Indian-origin Laxman Narasimhan as its new Chief Executive Officer. Notably, Narsimhan, who served as CEO of Reckitt, will replace Howard Schultz. He will be joining Starbucks as the CEO on October 1 after relocating from London to Seattle. Notably, Schultz will continue as interim CEO of Starbucks till April 1, 2023. 

Previously, Narasimhan held various leadership roles at PepsiCo, including as its global chief commercial officer. He has also worked as CEO of the company's Latin America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa operations, according to the press release by Starbucks. Before Pepsico, the Indian-origin man served as the senior partner at McKinsey and Company, with a focus on its consumer, retail and technological operations in the US, Asia and India.

Laxman Narasimhan holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering, University of Pune. He earned his MA degree in German and International Studies from The Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and completed MBA from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania. It is pertinent to mention here that Laxman Narasimhan is not the only Indian-origin person to become CEO of leading multinational companies. Here is a list of Indian-Origin CEOs who lead top global companies: 

Sundar Pichai

Sundar Pichai is the Chief Executive officer of Alphabet Inc and  Google. He also serves on Alphabet’s Board of Directors. 

Leena Nair

Leena Nair serves as the Global Chief Executive Officer of the French luxury brand Chanel. Previously, Nair worked as the Chief Human Resources Officer at Unilever. 

Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft. Originally from Hyderabad, Nadella became Microsoft’s CEO in February 2014. 

Shantanu Narayen

Shantanu Narayen serves as the CEO of the software company Adobe. He joined Adobe in 1998 as its Vice President and general manager of its engineering technology group. Shantanu Narayen was named Adobe’s CEO in 2007 and chairman of the company's board in 2017. 

Parag Agrawal

Parag Agrawal serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the microblogging site Twitter. He was named the CEO of Twitter in November 2021. Agrawal, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay joined Twitter in 2011. 

Arvind Krishna

Arvind Krishna is the Chief Executive Officer of IBM. He holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and a PhD from the University of Illinois. 

Raghu Raghuram

Raghu Raghuram works as the CEO of VMware. After joining VMware in 2003, Raghuram has held several leadership roles in the company. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. 

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