Indians in global tech roles a 'net positive', says Cisco's Jeetu Patel

The growing number of Indian-origin leaders at the helm of major global technology companies should not be viewed through the prism of brain drain, but as a "net positive" for both India and the world, said Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer of Cisco.

Addressing the debate on whether India loses out when its top talent rises to leadership roles in the United States and other advanced economies, Patel rejected the zero-sum framing.

"I think of India as a net exporter of talent," he told PTI in an interview, adding, "I haven't thought about this as a zero-sum equation."  He argued that Indian professionals thriving globally often do so because of the cultural grounding they receive at home.

 

"Indians that have been born and raised here and have actually had the benefit of the cultural values that have been instilled in us - of hard work and education and ethics and all of that - and then we go to different parts of the world and we end up thriving there largely because of some of those values that were instilled in us in the first place is a net positive for the world but it's also a net positive for India."  "I don't think of it as a zero-sum," he reiterated.

His remarks come at a time when several Indian-origin executives occupy top roles in leading US technology firms, fuelling discussions on whether India's global talent footprint reflects opportunity or loss.

Indians and Indian-origin leaders now occupy some of the most influential tech roles in the United States and beyond, illustrating the global impact of the country's talent pipeline. In the US, Satya Nadella heads Microsoft and Sundar Pichai leads Alphabet (Google's parent), while Arvind Krishna is CEO of IBM and Shantanu Narayen chairs Adobe, one of the world's largest software companies. Nikesh Arora serves as CEO of cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks, and Vijaye Raji is Chief Technology Officer of Applications at OpenAI, overseeing engineering for key AI platforms.

Asked about India's technological rivalry with China, particularly in artificial intelligence and advanced infrastructure, Patel acknowledged Beijing's strengths but cautioned against simplistic comparisons.

"I think China... is a force in the sense that they've got the benefit of (a different system). It's a very different thing (than) running a democracy with 1.4 billion people and having a system that is completely a command and control system," he said.

"What China has done over the course of the past few years is actually very commendable," Patel added.

At the same time, he pointed to India's structural advantages, including demographics, scale and global partnerships.

"I would think of the opportunity that India has ahead of them with the scale and the demographics advantage and the ability to have allies with countries all around the world," he said.

Expressing confidence in India's trajectory, Patel said, "I wouldn't look at this as second to anyone. I feel like there's a lot of goodness left to be had."  His comments underscore a broader view that global talent mobility and geopolitical competition in technology need not be framed as binary contests, but as evolving ecosystems where countries can leverage their unique strengths.