Ajei Gopal, another Indian origin CEO in US

Ajei Gopal, 54, a software industry veteran with an experience of 25 years in the technology industry, is now ready to be the Chief Executive Officer at ANSYS, a leading US company.

A pass out from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, a top-notch engineering institute in the country, Ajei Gopal, has held leadership roles at Information Technology companies including Symantec, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

The industry veteran has now been named the CEO of ANSYS, a Pennsylvania-based company that produces engineering simulation software used for testing product designs across a wide spectrum of industries including rockets and wearable technology.

Gopal, who has served as a member of the ANSYS board since 2011, will start serving as the CEO effective January 1, 2017 and will continue to be a member of the board.

Gopal began his career as a member of the technical staff at Bell Communications Reserves, served as interim president and COO at California-based technology company Symantec, leading the company through the recruitment of a permanent CEO, has been senior vice president and general manager at Hewlett-Packard from 2011 and has worked at IBM from 1991 to 2000.

His extensive management and business development experience at these large software and technology companies is being credited to his name by ANSYS which said that having him on board is a huge win.

James Cashman, who has served as ANSYS’ Chief Executive Officer since 2000, will become Chairman of the Board of Directors, effective from January 2017.

“I have no doubt that his outstanding leadership, unique perspective and appreciation for ANSYS’ culture, people and organisation make him the right choice to serve as our next leader during this exciting time,” Cashman says.

Gopal, who has 23 US patents to his name and has a doctorate in computer science from Cornell University, besides the degree from IIT, Mumbai, said he was “honoured” to lead ANSYS.

“…I am committed to building on our standard of excellence and pushing the boundaries of innovation to help customers solve their most complex design challenges,” he said.

Ronald Hovsepian, who currently serves as Chairman of the ANSYS Board, said Gopal brings a “proven track record, expertise managing the scale and complexity of a global multi-billion dollar company and critical skills in software strategy, engineering, product management and development”.

Headquartered in Pennsylvania, ANSYS has more than 75 strategic sales locations throughout the world with a network of channel partners in over 40 countries.

Gopal, another Indian in this list of many

Sundar Pichai positioned to his current role of Google’s CEO on August 10, 2015.

Satya Naryana Nadella more commonly known as Satya Nadella was named Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in 2014.

Ivan Menezes over as head of the British drinks giant Diageo in July 2013.

Anshu Jain, a British-Indian business executive served as the CEO of Deutsche Bank from 2012-2015.

Ajaypal Singh Banga is the President and the CEO to the American multinational, MasterCard and began his duties on July1, 2010.

Rajeev Suri took charge at Nokia in Solutions and Networks in 2009.

Shantanu Narayen who began his career with Apple, took over as the CEO of Adobe Systems in December 2007.

Indira Nooyi was named American food and beverage giant, Pepsi’s CEO in 2006.