Padma Bhushan awarded to Nadella and Pichai

New Delhi : Padma Bhushan was awarded Tuesday to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Google's CEO Sundar Pichai for their roles in bringing India's leading tech prowess to the US.

Sundar Pichai was born in Madras (now Chennai) on June 10, 1972, and earned his metallurgical engineering degree from India's premier university, IIT Kharagpur. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, third highest civilian honor after the Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan.

Upon moving to the US, he earned a PhD in materials science and engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Initially, Pihi was an engineer. Then, he worked at management consultancy firm McKinsey & Co for a short period before joining Google in 2004.

On August 10, 2015, Larry Page selected Sundar Pichai to become Google's next CEO after previously serving as its Product Chief. Pichai joined the Alphabet Board of Directors in 2017.

In 2016, and again in 2020, Pichai was included in Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people. Pichai is married to Anjali Pichai, and they have two children. He enjoys playing cricket and football.

Nadella, on the other hand, was born in Hyderabad (today's Telangana) on August 17, 1967. His mother Prabhavati was a Sanskrit lecturer, and his father, Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar, was an IAS officer in the 1962 batch.

He graduated from the Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Nadella went on to study for an MS in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

A 1997 MBA graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, he currently serves as Microsoft's Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson as Chairman in 2021.