On 24 November, 350 guests dressed in Indian ethnic wears took a special flight on Boeing 747 – the Queen of Skies. The jumbo aircraft had no (travel) class divisions, such as economy, premium economy, and business. There was music, dance, food…. absolute ‘midair’ revelry aboard the flight for 3 hours. It was the venue of a big fat Indian wedding in the sky. Needless to say, grand Indian weddings know no bounds or heights.

Dilip Popley, a wealthy diamond merchant with lavish jewelry stores in India and Dubai, married off his daughter in a grand inflight wedding on B747, which was modified to suit the purpose. The lovebirds – Vidhi Popley and Hridesh Sainani – tied the knot following various rituals on board while the aircraft with decorated interiors was flying from Dubai to Oman. The inflight wedding was a first-of-its-kind surprise in Dubai, where it has become a vogue in India and the USA.

PC: YouTube/The Brew News

The Dubai-based NRI family that owns the diamond jewelry brand – Popley and Sons – founded in 1927, has a history of weddings in the sky. The bride’s father, Dilip Popley, had got married on an Air India flight between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in 1994. Organized by Air India with approval from the regulatory bodies, the inflight wedding was the first such historic event in the world of aviation. When Dilip’s father approached the then national carrier for an unconventional wedding, the airline responded, “The Sky is the limit.”

The wedding event on Air India’s A310, which made headlines as “Hawai Bandhan”, was such a lavish affair that celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor had designed the menu for the guests. “My wedding in the air was my dad’s dream. He wanted to get me married on an Air India plane. Now I am carrying his dream to another level with my daughter’s wedding on a B747 aircraft,” said Dilip Popley with pride.

The guests for the Vidhi-Hridesh wedding on B747 were handed over boarding passes designed with traditional motifs of Indian wedding. The groom wearing a cream-colored sherwani and the bride wearing a red lehenga with delicate golden work arrived in a red Ferrari at a private terminal in South Dubai where their close family members and friends received them in an impressive manner. They boarded the aircraft decorated with exotic flowers inside for a 3-hour flight cum wedding ceremony.

The B747 operated by Jetex was equipped with projectors for all the 350 guests to enjoy unobstructed viewing of the nuptial ceremonies. The seats on board were upholstered with floral fabric. The guests grooved to foot-tapping Bollywood numbers that filled the cabin air with electrifying vibes, just like in a typical Indian wedding on ground. Traditional dishes including shahi paneer, dal makhani, mushroom pulao and likes from a quintessential north Indian wedding menu were also served on board.

It seems Dubai is not just a popular stopover for transit passengers of Emirates flights between USA and India, but also a getaway for destination Indian weddings. “My wedding in the air is my father’s dream to another level. I hope, for my (future) child’s marriage, technology will allow us to do something bigger, such as wedding in space,” said the newly wed Indian bride.

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Indian-origin teens are stealing the show and having crowning moments in the United States, whether a competition tests their beauty or brains. While 6 Indian-origin finalists are vying for America’s Young Scientist Title 2023, 16-year-old UmaSofia Srivastava won the crown of Miss Teen USA 2023. Her crowning moment was a moment of joy, a moment of glory, a moment of pride for the Indian Diaspora in America. It warmed their hearts as they beheld the coveted crown being passed down from the previous year’s Indian American winner Faron Medhi to her successor UmaSofia.

PC: Instagram.com/umasofias

Like the ‘Miss World America 2021’ Shree Saini, UmaSofia with her beauty and intelligence, beat other 50 contestants from across the States and the District of Columbia at the national-level event in Nevada. She represented New Jersey as Miss New Jersey Teen 2023; the title she bagged early this year was her entry to the grand finale. She is not only the first New Jersey teen but also the first Mexican Indian to have earned the ‘Miss Teen USA 2023’fame.

Her win on the American soil where actress Priyanka Chopra was bullied for her brown complexion in her school days is a bold act of defiance to the American standards of beauty. She is a lot more than her age and beauty. the Miss Teen USA 2023 title winner is a staunch humanitarian. She believes in ethnic diversity, cultural inclusivity, and societal equality. She is a cofounder of the Diversity and Inclusion Campaign at her school, the Academy of St. Elizabeth. She initiates meaningful debates on contemporary topics among young minds as the president of a debate club.

Inspired by changemakers in the US and other parts of the world, UmaSofia Srivastava works with the Lotus Petal Foundation for the welfare of underprivileged children in India. She is associated with several education, nutrition and healthcare initiatives for their holistic development. As an education activist, she collected and donated over 1000 books to the Bridge of Books Foundation to extend the wealth of knowledge for economically disadvantaged kids in New Jersey.

America’s Miss Teen USA 2023, UmaSofia Srivastava has several feathers in her cap. She is a published author with the title “The White Jaguar” to her credit. The metaphorical title is based on her nickname – Little Jaguar (given by her father). The book is a celebration of her unique experience as a half-Indian and a half-Mexican. The book that depicts the journey of a little white jaguar from being hesitant about its unnatural color to ultimately finding the strength to embrace its unique identity resonates with immigrants of color. She hopes to inspire them to unapologetically be their true selves.

UmaSofia, a young beauty with brains and ideals, aspires to become a United Nations ambassador. She believes in self-worth and spreads messages of positivity as well as empowerment through her blog, That’s Fan Behavior. Elucidating her goal to ‘inspire people to be their true selves’ through both her ‘achievements and mistakes’, she states, “taking a risk is never the worst thing; not knowing what could’ve happened if you did, is.”

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Be it south pole of the Moon, the World Athletics Championships, or Food Network TV’s reality cooking competition show Chopped, India is not only winning laurels but also leaving her footprints everywhere. Like India’s lunar mission, Indian food continues to penetrate, explore and rule over exotic landscapes. Indian-origin chef Jassi Bindra’s win at Chopped, a popular American reality cooking competition series, is the latest testimony to Indian food’s orbiting of the earth.

Jassi Bindra’s culinary journey from his hometown in India to Texas via Washington DC culminated in having won the grand prize, $10,000, in the episode that Food Network broadcast on August 15. He outpaced three other chefs in three rounds, each 20 to 30 minutes, and dominated the episode with his eclectic spin on some traditional Indian recipes. As per media reports, he kept his win under wraps for 10 months after the episode was shot in November 2022. He made it public to a watch party at his restaurant when the show was airing on August 15.

PC: Instagram.com/chefjassibindra/

In 2016, it was Aarthi Sampath who became a celebrity in the culinary world of America following her win at Chopped as the first Indian woman chef. Today, she is a most sought after restaurant and food truck business consultant in New York. She not only interned at Chef Vikas Khanna’s Junoon, a Michelin starred Indian restaurant in Manhattan, but also assisted him on “The Billionaire’s Club Dinner” that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

The first turbaned chef to have won a reality cooking competition on American TV, Jassi Bindra was not born with a ladle in his hand. When he was 19, he rolled up his sleeves to work in the kitchen, an exclusively private space of his mom, grandmom and other women members of the family in India. He headed a culinary program across a dozen of restaurants in his native place before traveling to Washington, DC where he worked at Punjab Grill for several years.

His chance meeting with the Singh brothers, Surpreet Singh and Preet Singh, in DC brought him to the south coast as a co-owner and executive chef of Amrina, a fine-dining Indian restaurant in the Woodlands near Houston. The Singh brothers’ (restaurant) business acumen blended with Jassi Brinda’s culinary versatility to make Amrina (a Hindi word meaning princess) a must-visit destination for the best fine-dining experience with touches of royalty. “Amrina where a symphony of tastes unfolds in life’s most delectable moments celebrates the rich tapestry of Indian cuisine,” said Chef Bindra, a ‘Chopped’ champion.

“The moment he was declared the winner, he sprang out of joy with the Punjabi phrase – Balle, Balle…Jassi Bindra’s recipe of Fortune Cookie Rabri that he made from fortune cookies (crisp cookie wafers), gooseberries, blue Hubbard squash, and camel milk with a quick thought in the final round proved to be the Midas Touch for his win,” said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats, a leading community portal for Indians in the US by Indian Eagle.

“I am here to show how Indian cuisine can be sexy,” said Amrina’s executive chef Jassi Bindra at the onset of the competition. In the appetizer round, he confidently made stuffed poblano peppers with sardines and portobello mushrooms topped with cheddar cheese fondue (using peanut butter and panko bread crumbs). His instant recipe of grilled short ribs with pea green salad and Cola-coconut sauce stole the stole the show with the judges including Maneet Chauhan, an award-winning chef, cookbook writer, and culinary advocate.

To celebrate his win at Chopped, Chef Jassi Bindra pledged to donate some of the prize money, $10,000, for a charitable cause at the Make-a-Wish Foundation. He would spend the remaining amount to buy gadgets for his kitchen and gifts for his son, as he said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. His restaurant in Texas will soon treat diners to the award-winning dishes that he prepared on the reality show.

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“Chase your dreams. Don’t let anything hold you back”. These encouraging words of her mom were ringing to her ears when Arushi Garg won NBC’s Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge season 1 to the surprise of Indian Diaspora in the US and her family in India. 38-year-old Arushi Garg, an Indian immigrant mom and blogger, is currently basking in her moments of ‘American Dream’. She earned a whopping $50K cash prize and a highly customized Nissan Skyline (GT-R).

PC: Arushi Garg | Facebook.com/Thesnazzymom

Arushi who calls Houston her second home not only demonstrated her creativity but also celebrated her Indian roots and culture in the American TV reality show. Her achievement in the inaugural season of ‘Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge’ is remarkable on various levels. She was the only woman contestant qualified for the finals of the car makeover reality show, which is generally thought to be a male-appropriate space. More importantly, she followed her gut instinct throughout the process of transforming a Nissan Skyline into a life-size rally car without any first-hand experience or expertise.

For the finals, Arushi Garg was tasked with makeover of the iconic Nissan Skyline GT-R (featured in Fast & Furious movies) into a life-size Hot Wheels model. She recalls that she instantly knew what she wanted to do with the Skyline and her team of carpoolers helped bring her vision to life. They took up the risky rebuild and started replacing Skyline’s wheels with bigger and dramatic 24-inch wheels. This choice of hers was met with a skeptical gaze from the judges and cautionary advice against the use of big wheels for aesthetic reasons, but Arushi Garg believed in her vision and went ahead with her design.

The modest Skyline took the shape of a bright red rally car with a raised roof, extended fenders, striking light bars, roil cage and a fifth wheel on the back. Her stunning recreation was inscribed with affirmations. She called it ‘Rally Resilience’, a symbol of everything Arushi Garg believes in – the power of kindness, fearlessness, humility, etc. Through her creation, she encourages one to ‘Never Quit’ – a message that flashes when a UV light is cast on the car.

Arushi Garg’s ticket to the Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge finals was her funky and flamboyant makeover of a Maruti Suzuki Omni, her first family car, in the fourth of the 8 episodes. She transformed it into an eye-popping pink Hot Wheels van with vibrant hues and traditional motifs which are mostly seen in the décor of mansions and the fabric of ethnic outfits in Rajasthan where she hails from. She named her qualifying design ‘Jaipur Jewel’ after her native place, Jaipur.

With her wacky redesign of the first family car, an 8-seater Maruti Omni, that the judges had never seen before, Arushi paid homage to her late father, her beloved homeland, and her Indian heritage. It not only impressed the judges and the audience, but also touched the hearts of Indian immigrants.

PC: Arushi Garg | TheSnazzyMom.com

The 8-seater Omni van, one of the first launches of Maruti Suzuki, had high significance in Indian society when there used to be joint families. Over time, it became a symbol of family bonding and togetherness in the 1980s. The frequent use of the vehicle with sliding doors in kidnapping and heist scenes on the celluloid tarnished the image of Maruti Omni as Bollywood’s official kidnapping car. With a paradigm shift in its status and significance, these cars became mere displays in wedding processions in the hinterlands of north India.

Recalling her love for cars, she notes that she used to play with cars more than dolls in her childhood. Interestingly, her 7-year-old son, Vir, has developed the same passion for cars and his vast Hot Wheels collection of 200 diecast cars inspired her to take up challenges at the Hot Wheels reality show. Rekindling her passion and pushing her boundaries, she set out to make a difference in the male-dominated car culture. She also wanted to win the Hot Wheels Challenge for her kid, so it can inspire him to pursue his dreams with absolute belief in himself.

“I hope it inspires you to chase your dreams, embrace your heritage, and never let anyone define what you can or cannot achieve. We all have the power to be trailblazers and break stereotypes, just like I did with my Hot Wheels creation,” says Arushi Garg, the Snazzy Mom.

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Today, Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar exploration mission, took off. The successful launch has given goosebumps to 1.41 billion Indians at home and abroad, demonstrating India’s leadership in space missions. The whole world is watching India in wonder and congratulating #ISRO.The team of scientists behind the historic lunar expeditions is led by Dr. Ritu Karidhal, the Chandrayaan-3 mission director, who is popularly known as the rocket woman of India.

Likewise, a team of Indian-origin women scientists including two Bengali sisters is working day in and day out on the Artemis Program, NASA’s ambitious Moon to Mars human mission by 2024.

Picture Credit: NASA Blog | Pratima Roy and Pooja Roy

NASA’s Indian-origin workforce includes two interns, Pratima Roy and Pooja Roy. The Roy sisters have been interning at NASA Glen Research Center since Fall 2020 and working on the STEM projects that tie into the Artemis program – NASA’s ambitious mission to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. What fetched the Roy sisters global attention is their deep obeisance to Indian culture and Hinduism. They firmly believe that the opportunity to intern at NASA is a divine blessing. The blog of NASA quotes them saying:

“God observes everything we do and what we want in our lives and a dream can actually come true!”

Pratima Roy and Pooja Roy are sophomores at New York City College of Technology. They are majoring in computer engineering. The project that Pratima Roy, among the interns at NASA, is working on requires her to learn Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Biomimicry and Amazon Web Services. She is working on designing and defining robotic tasks that will need to be completed in order to gather and collect data when astronauts will travel to the Moon. Her project ties into NASA’s Moon to Mars mission. Rewriting the code is one of the first steppingstones in her STEM journey.

Pooja Roy is working towards the same goal like her sister. The STEM project that she is involved in converts Java Applets to JavaScript for web-based Aeronautics Simulations. Her work entails designing “interactive simulations to help explore the theory and practice of flight in space.” The accomplishments that she has achieved so far by contributing to NASA’s space expeditions include SATERN trainings.

Apart from this Indian-origin intern duo, Subhashini Iyer, a mechanical engineer from Tamil Nadu, is working on the same project but in a different role. Head of the Integrated Product Team at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, Subhashini Iyer is responsible for overseeing the Space Launch System, the world’s most powerful rocket for NASA’s return to the Moon after about 50 years.

WOMEN of Indian descent are following the trail that astronaut Kalpana Chawla had blazed at NASA and beyond. The successful landing of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover bore a testimony to Indian-origin women’s contributions to NASA’s space odysseys in their respective roles and capacities. Other than Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams who created history in space, Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta, the lead program scientist for NASA’s ‘Living with a Star’ initiative; Dr. Anita Sengupta, a leading aerospace engineer at NASA; and Sharmila Bhattacharya, the head of NASA’s Biomodel Performance and Behavior laboratory have been instrumental in propelling the United States’ space expeditions.

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There are many unpleasant stories of Indians neglecting parents with dreary eyes, withered cheeks and stooped shoulders back home after having settled abroad. But the tweets that an NRI living in the United States, posted sharing a heart-warming story in bits and pieces are changing the narrative. Gaurav Sabnis, an Associate Professor in New York, poured out his joy, through a series of tweets, of flying out his parents on business class flights from India to USA for the first time.

This is an AI-generated image. It resemblance to any real figure is purely coincidental.

Gaurav tweeted that being able to afford business class flight tickets for his parents made him feel “extra grown up” and that he did not give in to their objection to what they called unnecessary extravagance. His tweets are expressive of his euphoria over securing a comfortable flight for his parents’ long-haul travel from India to New York.

PC: Gaurav Sabnis @ Twitter

He elaborated why his parents are fully deserving of business class air travel. Especially his mom, who feels happy with little things in life, would be the world’s happiest person when she would land from an international business class 777 flight. He tweeted that his father would be thrilled to get a bed on board and catch a good sleep all the way to New York from India.

Elaborating further why a business flight for his mother means a lot more about comfort rather than luxury, Gaurav tweeted that his mother has been a “hardened traveler” since her 20s. Due to his father’s profession as a highway bridge engineer, his mother had taken many rough, bumpy bus rides with two kids. He went on to recollect how she endured the utter discomfort of those journeys without a toilet for women on highways. However, she did never complain.

As a kid, he used to wonder why his mother barely drank water during a 16 to 20-hour bus journey between Pune and Indore; whereas he guzzled water in plenty. Only after growing up, he realized why. He remembers the privilege of being male in India in those days. As a boy, he would run out of the bus and pee in a secluded corner whenever the bus took a halt (twice or thrice) on the highway. He rues the difficulty any other woman, like his mother, had had without a toilet break during long-hour bus journeys in the 80s and 90s. He further tweeted:

“First time mom visited the US (almost 15 years ago!) she loved how we could take any random exit off the highway, go to any random gas station & the toilet was still generally clean usable safe. So she could drink water whenever she liked. Small joys!”

Gaurav Sabnis had actually planned to fly out his parents on a business class flight for his mother’s birthday in April 2020 and accompany them. But the suspension of all international flights to and from India in wake of the pandemic spoiled the plan. Though after 2 years, he was happy to have them experienced the comfort of business class travel by air. He concluded the twitter thread saying how incredibly fortunate and privileged he was to make this happen.

May the above heart-warming story inspire other Indians in America to book cheap business class air travel between USA and India for their parents. On the occasion of Mother’s Day, you can use Indian Eagle’s flight discount coupon to get $25 off on booking your mother/parents/parents-in-law’s travel to USA/India only at IndianEagle.com. If you accompany them on the trip, the discount can be availed on the total airfare.

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“We need to provide educational opportunities to the bright minds born in underprivileged backgrounds as we firmly believe that education has the power to not only uplift individuals, but also transform communities, nations, and the future of our planet. Education is the only reliable way out of poverty. We are on the mission to help disadvantaged children become world-class professionals and great humans so they could become a beacon of hope for their community and millions of other underprivileged children,” said Dr Amit Singhal who co-founded Sitare Foundation with his wife, Shilpa Singhal.

Picture Credit: REUTERS/Stephen Lam

With a PhD degree and 4 years of work experience in information retrieval, Dr Amit Singhal had joined Google at its nascent stage in 2000. After a few days into the job, he found the code sloppy that the founders of Google had developed and rewrote the algorithms in only two months. His rewriting of Google algorithms was an overhaul to the speed of ranking and the relevance of search results, for which he was named a Google fellow, an honor worth millions of dollars. He was also nicknamed ‘King of the Ranking’ at the Google campus in San Francisco Bay Area.

In 2016, Amit Singhal quit his executive-level Google career of 15 years to give back to the community. When he became Senior Vice President for Search at Google in California, he asked himself, “What would you want to do for the next fifteen years?” He heard from within himself, “Give back to others. My life from a small Himalayan town to Google has been a dream journey. Now my priority should be to give back to people who are less fortunate.”

Amit, a PhD alumnus of Cornwell University, and Shilpa, a physicist from the State University of New York, came to India for a bigger and greater cause. They founded Sitare Foundation, a bootstrapped NGO in Rajasthan, with the sole aim of transforming the lives of meritorious students from low-income, minority households with quality education and opportunities for higher studies. At Sitare Foundation, Amit and Shilpa fund education of the brightest minds from middle school in India to prestigious universities in the United States.

Sitare Foundation started with 250 registrations in its founding year, 2016 and received more than 50,000 applications for its merit-based entrance test in 2021. The NGO handpicks the most promising students from families with a hand-to-mouth existence through an aptitude test every year. They are further examined through a comprehensive evaluation process at a free, two-week camp. Out of the nearly 75,000 applications received for the entrance test 2022, 100 students have been selected. With its growing presence in five cities across India, Sitare Foundation has partnered with private schools where they will be schooled from 6^th grade to the grade 12 for free.

Their emotional health and social wellbeing are also taken care of by Shilpa and Amit Singhal at Sitare Foundation. “All our energy goes into ensuring we transform 50,000 lives through education by 2050. Besides education, we support them with food, clothing, books, school supplies, and transportation. Additionally, we have a fully residential program for students to focus on their college admissions. We spend on an average $2000 per student every year from our life savings,” said Amit.

“Where I am today is only because of education,” says Amit with beaming eyes. His great-grandfather had never been to school and used to run a small bicycle repair shop, but he gave education to his son (Amit’s grandfather) and helped him become a school teacher. Amit’s grandfather sent his son to IIT Roorkee where Amit’s father studied civil engineering. Amit is the first in his family to have earned a PhD and that too in the US. “The only thing every generation gave the next generation was education, no money,” he reminisces.

Bearing a testimony to the success of Dr Amit Singhal’s Sitare Foundation is 17-year-old Kusum Chaudhary, who is all set to travel to the US and study a 4-year computer science program at Maryland University. She had an uncertain future in one of the narrow lanes of Jodhpur unless she was selected by Sitare Foundation. Farming is the only means of sustenance for her family that does not have land of their own. If she were not able to earn Sitare Foundation’s scholarship, she would have dropped out of school.

Shilpa and Amit Singhal’s philanthropic journey has not been without challenges. Students’ family background has been a deterrent to their parents’ wish to send their children to school. Especially, the obligations for girls to help their mothers with household chores, look after their younger siblings when both of their parents are at work, and supplement the family income by working in the field keep them away from school. Early marriage of girls is another reason for them to drop out of school in rural backwaters, and this social issue has been a big challenge for Sitare Foundation.

This inspiring story of philanthropy is brought to you by Travel Beats, an overseas Indian community portal by Indian Eagle. A reputed air-ticketing partner of Indians in USA, Indian Eagle is committed to making you travel with cost-to-cost flight tickets to India from USA even though international airfares are incredibly high these days.  

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With 2021 making way for 2022, India gave one more CEO to the United States. The most elite club of Indian-origin CEOs in America welcomed India-born Anand Eswaran as the Chief Executive Officer of a leading data management and security solutions provider headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. With a global clientele base of over 400,000 and the annual recurring revenue (ARR) having exceeded $1billion in 2021, Veeam Software aims at reaching new highs under the leadership of Anand Eswaran, who was the Vice President of SAP and Microsoft from 2012 till 2019.

“I am excited to welcome Anand as Veeam’s new CEO. Anand brings extensive experience in developing new business models, executing on market expansion and driving growth with an inclusive purpose-led and people-first culture. To have someone with Anand’s experience on board will lead us into a new era of success, as we further accelerate into the cloud and evaluate the opportunity for Veeam to be a publicly traded company in the future,” said Bill Largest, who chairs the Board of Directors at Veeam.

Prior to joining the IPO-bound Veeam at the heart of the global data ecosystem, Indian American Anand Eswaran was the President and COO of RingCentral Inc in San Francisco for two years. He led various teams, including Product, HR, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, IT, Operations and Customer Care, at RingCentral, a leading provider of cloud-based solutions headquartered in Belmont, California. His strategic leadership and vision drove a 39% increase in the year-over-year financial growth of RingCentral.

Veeam CEO Anand Eswaran’s 5-year tenure at Microsoft was one of the most significant milestones in his pursuit of American Dreams. As Corporate Vice President, he was responsible for the customers’ transformational journey towards a digital entity at Microsoft where he led five geographically diverse teams across customer care, global services & support, sales, digital and industry solutions. He had joined Microsoft with 3 years of experience as Executive Vice President of SAP Global Services. It was preceded by his key leadership role as Vice President of HP Software Global Services.

A resident of Seattle, Anand Eswaran is an alumnus of the University of Mumbai. His pursuit of American Dreams began with his masters at the University of Missouri in the Midwest, USA. His journey from an H1B visa to the US citizenship culminated in him having become the CEO of Veeam Software. “Data is exploding and has become a most business-critical asset in all organizations. It is pivotal to the way businesses operate today, and failure to have data security can be catastrophic. Veeam has a unique opportunity to break away as we sit in the middle of the data ecosystem, with the most robust ransomware protection,” said Veeam CEO.

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After Parag Agarwal, the CEO of Twitter, was given a red-carpet welcome into the elite club of Indian-origin CEOs helming global conglomerates, another Indian-origin business leader is appointed the CEO of an American global e-commerce company. India-born Kedar Deshpande, who has been the CEO of Zappos since Sep 2020, will become the CEO of Groupon, Inc. with effect from December 10, 2021. He will also be serving on the Groupon Board of Directors.

“Throughout the Board’s search process, our goal was to identify a leader who could help accelerate Groupon’s progress to become the go-to destination for local, and we are excited to welcome Kedar as Groupon’s next CEO,” said Ted Leonsis, Chairman of the Board of Directors. “Kedar has a strong track record of driving growth and operational excellence, and brings significant e-commerce leadership experience to Groupon. We believe these characteristics coupled with his passion for people and culture, will allow Kedar to successfully lead Groupon into its next chapter of growth”, added Leonsis.

Groupon, Inc.’s first-ever Indian-origin CEO, Kedar Deshpande is one of the few self-made business leaders who climbed the corporate ladder and reached the top of the totem pole faster than others. His journey from economy class travel to business class flights and from H1B visa to the most coveted US citizenship is the one that every American career aspirant from India desires. With a graduate degree from India, he travelled to the US in 2001 and pursued masters in computer engineering at the University of Nevada.

Kedar Deshpande started his career as a software engineer in the land of American Dream. After nearly 6 years at General Electric – the foundation of his American career – he took up the role of a technical project manager at PepsiCo for a short stint. He started the journey to the uppermost echelon of corporate hierarchy after his talent was discovered and pooled by Zappos in 2011. Over the past 10 years of his escalating career at Zappos, he played a key leadership role in various positions starting from portfolio manager to product manager, senior marketing manager, director of marketing & product development, senior director of marketing, and GM of ecommerce technology & marketing.

Zappos promoted him to the VP of Technology & Marketing in September 2019. In one year of this position, he was elevated to the Chief Operating Officer role. The culmination of his meteoric career as CEO of Zappos was the watershed in his relentless pursuit of American Dreams. His notable contributions to the growth and expansion of Zappos includes opening a creation studio in Las Vegas where a team was deployed and trained for developing content across different platforms.

“Groupon is at a pivotal moment in its journey to become the destination for local, and I am honored to assume the role of CEO. Local experiences create memories and forge new connections that can last a lifetime, and as an at-scale local experiences marketplace, Groupon is very well-positioned to grow by connecting more and more consumers to local merchants around the world. The company has spent the last 18 months building a strong foundation for growth and I am excited to work alongside the Groupon team and the Board to drive progress and create value for all of our stakeholders,” said Kedar Deshpande.

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Indian-origin Dr. Parag Agarwal from California is the new CEO of Twitter. He succeeded Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey who stepped down from the most coveted and responsible position of CEO on November 29, 2021. With unanimous consent of the social networking and micro blogging company’s board to his appointment as CEO, 37-year-old Parag Agarwal joined the elite club of global tech CEOs of Indian origin, including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen.

“Parag is CEO starting today. He has been my choice for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs. He has been behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around. He’s curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware and humble. He leads with heart and soul. He is someone I learn from daily. My trust in him as our CEO is bone deep,” said Jack Dorsey in his resignation note.

Who is Dr. Parag Agarwal, Twitter’s new CEO? Born and brought up in Mumbai, he is a distinguished IIT-Bombay graduate from India. He moved to the US in 2005 and joined Stanford University for masters in computer science and engineering. He is also a PhD alumnus of Stanford University. He has been with Twitter since 2011. Twitter had hired him as a Distinguished Software Engineer in October 2011, and he became the chief technology officer (CTO) of Twitter in 6 years of his journey at the social media firm. In only four years of his outstanding service as CTO, Parag Agarwal became the CEO of Twitter.

Netizens from America to Asia are wondering over Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal’s salary and net worth. He has helmed the company’s technical strategy at Twitter. He also led the company’s several teams in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Twitter’s audience growth is one of his remarkable contributions to the company. He is also responsible for optimizing the company’s use of AI technology in enhancing the relevance of user-generated tweets. Prior to joining Twitter, he had short stints in data management research at Microsoft, Yahoo, and AT&T Labs, Inc.

Leading business analysts opined that the appointment of an Indian-origin CEO is likely to impact Twitter’s relations with the government of India.

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The CEOs of global conglomerates, from Stripe to SpaceX, are eloquent in congratulating Parag Agarwal on having become the CEO of Twitter. Elon Musk, the world’s richest billionaire, tweeted, “USA benefits greatly from Indian talent!”

Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, and now Twitter run by CEOs who grew up in India. Wonderful to watch the amazing success of Indians in the technology world and a good reminder of the opportunity America offers to immigrants. (Congrats, @paraga!)

— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) November 29, 2021

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