India

Asia Leaders

Arvind Krishna Rebuilt IBM Around Software. Now He Has to Make the AI Stack Outrun the Mainframe Cycle

Arvind Krishna made IBM smaller, more software-led and more profitable. A second-quarter shortfall now tests whether Confluent, Red Hat and watsonx can produce growth independent of the mainframe cycle.

Asia Leaders

Nikesh Arora Made Palo Alto Networks Cybersecurity’s Consolidator. Now He Has to Make the Stack Work as One

Nikesh Arora turned Palo Alto Networks into cybersecurity’s leading consolidator. CyberArk and Chronosphere now make integration—not another acquisition—the defining test of his platform strategy.

Asia Leaders

Sanjay Mehrotra Turned Micron’s Memory Shortage Into Long-Term Contracts. Now He Has to Stop the Boom From Rebuilding the Glut

Sanjay Mehrotra has used AI-driven scarcity to secure five-year customer commitments and record margins at Micron. The harder task is expanding supply without financing the next memory glut.

Asia Leaders

Nithin Kamath Is Turning Zerodha’s Profits Into Patient Capital. Rainmatter Needs Portfolio Accountability

Rainmatter has expanded from fintech partnerships into a broad portfolio and a foundation supporting climate and livelihoods. Nithin Kamath must show how patient capital learns, recycles returns and remains accountable when it avoids board seats and fixed exits.

Asia Leaders

Neal Mohan Turned YouTube Into a $60 Billion Media System. Now He Has to Keep AI From Breaking Its Trust

Neal Mohan transformed YouTube from a video platform into a diversified global media economy. Artificial intelligence will determine whether its scale remains an advantage or becomes a crisis of trust.

Asia Leaders

Thomas Kurian Put Google Cloud on a $70 Billion Run Rate. Enterprise Agents Must Now Earn the Capacity Behind It

Thomas Kurian has made Google Cloud a credible enterprise AI platform. The economics now depend on whether agents create repeatable workloads rather than another burst of subsidised experimentation.

Asia Leaders

Jayshree Ullal Made Ethernet the Language of the Cloud. Now She Has to Make It the Fabric of AI

Jayshree Ullal turned Arista into the cloud era’s most disciplined networking challenger. AI now requires a broader systems company without the complexity Arista was built to defeat.

Asia Leaders

Aravind Srinivas Is Turning Perplexity Into a Product Portfolio. Focus Is the Next Breakthrough

Aravind Srinivas has expanded Perplexity far beyond search. The next leadership test is turning product velocity into a focused, repeatable business system.

Asia Leaders

Sandeep Bakhshi Made ICICI Bank a Model of Restraint. The Next Cycle Will Test That Discipline

ICICI Bank’s turnaround has become sustained compounding. Sandeep Bakhshi now faces the harder task of maintaining restraint during a period that rewards faster growth.

Asia Leaders

Dara Khosrowshahi Made Uber Profitable. Now He Has to Own the Driverless Transition

Dara Khosrowshahi has repaired Uber’s economics and legitimacy. The autonomous era will determine whether its marketplace remains at the centre of global mobility.

Asia Leaders

Vijay Shekhar Sharma Has Restored Paytm's Profit. Trust Is Still the Scarcer Asset

Paytm's financial recovery gives Vijay Shekhar Sharma a new starting point. Sustainable leadership now depends on institutional trust as much as growth.

Asia Leaders

Peyush Bansal Has Taken Lenskart Public. The Harder Test Is Making Scale Sharper

Lenskart's public-market debut has been followed by strong growth. Peyush Bansal's next task is to make a larger system more precise and capital-efficient.

Asia Leaders

Divya Deshmukh Won the World Cup and a Grandmaster Title. Chess Must Convert Visibility Into Durable Income

Divya Deshmukh has placed prize money, federation support, private sponsorship, league contracts, streaming and the educational value of a large Indian chess audience at the centre of the strategy. The next phase will test capital discipline, execution and durability across Asia.

Asia Leaders

Vimal Kapur Made Honeywell Smaller. Now He Has to Make It Faster

A FigureAsia examination of how Vimal Kapur turned three decades inside Honeywell into a radical portfolio reset—and why the new company’s future depends on making industrial autonomy commercially credible.

Asia Leaders

Sanjiv Puri Has Made ITC More Focused. The Consumer Business Must Now Prove It Can Carry More Weight

Sanjiv Puri has sharpened ITC through the hotels demerger and a broader consumer portfolio. The next phase depends on turning double-digit FMCG growth into returns strong enough to reduce reliance on cigarettes.

Asia Leaders

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Has Recombined Biocon. The Biosimilars Bet Must Now Generate Cash

Biocon’s structure is finally catching up with the global biosimilars business Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw assembled. Stronger margins and falling leverage are encouraging, but dilution, price competition and manufacturing execution remain material tests.

Asia Leaders

Satya Nadella Is Building a $190 Billion AI Utility, With Scarcity as Both Proof and Warning

Satya Nadella is committing utility-scale capital to Microsoft’s agentic AI platform while reducing headcount. The return will depend on capacity allocation, product usage and disciplined pricing.

Asia Leaders

Natarajan Chandrasekaran Is Wiring Tata From Chips to AI Agents. Capital Discipline Must Hold the Stack Together

Natarajan Chandrasekaran is positioning Tata across the physical and software layers of artificial intelligence. The strategy could deepen India’s technology capacity, but only if demand, energy and execution keep pace with investment.

Asia Leaders

Adar Poonawalla’s Malaria Vaccine Capacity Is Running Ahead of the Funding Market

Adar Poonawalla has made Serum Institute central to the malaria vaccine market, with R21 capacity and a new Oxford licence for R78C. The commercial constraint is no longer supply alone, but financed demand and durable procurement.

Asia Leaders

Rajesh Magow Is Turning MakeMyTrip From a Booking Site Into India's Travel Operating Layer

Rajesh Magow is using AI and selective acquisitions to widen MakeMyTrip's role. The test is whether one platform can improve every stage of Indian travel.

Asia Leaders

Satya Nadella Made Microsoft the Corporate World’s Default Route Into AI

A FigureAsia examination of how Satya Nadella turned Microsoft’s enterprise franchise into the world’s most powerful distribution system for artificial intelligence, and why his next test is trust rather than reach.

Asia Leaders

T.V. Narendran Has Improved Tata Steel's Numbers. Now the Green Transition Must Carry Its Own Weight

T.V. Narendran has restored operating momentum across Tata Steel. His next test is making a multi-country green transition produce acceptable returns.