Pichai Sundararajan(born June 10, 1972[3][4][5]), better known asSundar Pichai(/ˈsʊndɑːrpɪˈtʃaɪ/), is anIndian-Americanbusiness executive.[6]He is thechief executive officer(CEO) ofAlphabet Inc.and its subsidiaryGoogle.[7]
Born inMadurai, India,[4]Pichai earned his degree fromIIT Kharagpurinmetallurgical engineering. Moving to the United States, he attained anM.S.fromStanford Universityinmaterials scienceandengineeringand further attained anMBAfrom theWharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named aSiebel Scholarand a Palmer Scholar, respectively.[8]
Pichai began his career as amaterials engineer. Following a short stint at the management consulting firmMcKinsey & Co., Pichai joined Google in 2004,[9]where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google’s client software products, includingGoogle ChromeandChromeOS, as well as being largely responsible forGoogle Drive. In addition, he went on to oversee the development of other applications such asGmailandGoogle Maps. In 2010, Pichai also announced the open-sourcing of the new video codecVP8by Google and introduced the new video format,WebM. TheChromebookwas released in 2012. In 2013, Pichai addedAndroidto the list of Google products that he oversaw.
Pichai was selected to become the next CEO ofGoogleon August 10, 2015, after previously being appointedProduct Chiefby CEOLarry Page. On October 24, 2015, he stepped into the new position at the completion of the formation ofAlphabet Inc., the newholding companyfor theGooglecompany family. He was appointed to the Alphabet Board of Directors in 2017.[10]
Pichai was included inTime‘sannual list of the 100 most influential peoplein 2016[11]and 2020.[12]
