Only 6% of global Indian CEOs are women: HSBC Hurun list

The latest HSBC Hurun Global Indians List for 2024 highlights the underrepresentation of women among Indian-origin CEOs worldwide. Of the 200 companies on the list, with 226 CEOs, only 12 are women, making up almost 6% of the total.

While Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, and YouTube’s Neal Mohan were among the top Global Indians on the list, Leena Nair, Global CEO of Chanel, was acknowledged as the most influential woman of Indian origin. Leena Nair, a British Indian business executive, has been serving as the Global CEO of Chanel since January 2022. Under Nair, the French luxury house’s revenues grew by 16% year-on-year to $19.7 billion in 2023. Prior to this role, she worked with Unilever for 30 years.

Similarly, only seven Indian-origin CEOs on the list are under 40. This hints towards the longer gestation cycles for Indians to reach top leadership positions abroad.

The youngest of the lot was Tanay Tandon, co-founder and CEO of Commure, who made it to the list at just 27 years old. Commure provides a healthcare operating system for U.S. customers, connecting and supporting health institutions across the ecosystem to keep clinicians and staff connected, protected, and productive during moments of care. Commure serves customers exclusively in the United States.

He is followed by Aravind Srinivas, the 30-year-old co-founder and CEO of Perplexity. In recent years, Perplexity has gained global prominence for developing an AI competitor to search engines like Google.

The list is based on a survey of 400 respondents. It identifies the most influential Indian-origin individuals globally, with rankings determined by the valuation of their respective companies.

Where do these global Indians finally settle down?

A majority of these Indian-origin CEOs globally, who started their journeys in India, have made the United States their destination of choice.

Overall, almost 80% of global Indians chose the US, 5% chose the UK as their home, followed by 4% in the UAE.

Among them, 18.5% have settled in Silicon Valley’s San Francisco. In the UK, London hosts the largest group with eight individuals, while Dubai leads the Middle East with six residents.

Notably, 62% of these global Indians pursued undergraduate studies in India, while 77% opted for postgraduate education in the U.S.

IIT Madras emerged as the top undergraduate alma mater, producing 14 entrants, while Stanford University led postgraduate choices with 20 Indian-origin individuals on the list.

Where were these Indian-origin individuals really from in India?

Of these Indian-origin individuals were, 27 came from Tamil Nadu, followed by Punjab and Maharashtra. Almost 44% of the companies were from software & services industry, followed by financial services and healthcare.