America
PM congratulates new Google chief Sundar Pichai
New Delhi, Aug 11
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
on Tuesday congratulated Chennai-born Sundar Pichai on being appointed
Google's chief executive officer (CEO).
"Congratulations Sundar Pichai. My best wishes for the new role at Google," Modi tweeted.
The
43-year-old Pichai, an IIT Kharagpur, graduate, is the second person of
Indian-origin to head an IT company after Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella,
who became the CEO of software giant Microsoft in February 2014.
Chennai-born
Pichai became the CEO of the core business of Google as the search
giant in a major corporate restructuring formed an umbrella company
called Alphabet.
Several other companies will operate under
Alphabet acting as the parent holding company, including Google, a
company focused on health efforts called Life Sciences, and a company
focused on longevity called Calico.
Pichai, who holds an MS from
Stanford University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University
of Pennsylvania, has worked at Google, founded in 1998, since it went
public in 2004, most recently as the senior vice president of products.
"This
new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the
extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google," said Google chief
executive Larry Page in a blog post titled "G is for Google" on Monday.
"A
key part of this is Sundar Pichai," he said, adding: "Sundar has been
saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite
some time now, and I've been tremendously enjoying our work together."