Arun Sarin

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Former CEO, Vodafone

Born on October 21, 1954 at Panchmari, Madhya Pradesh, Sarin was an academically bright student. He was equally good at sports like field hockey, boxing and various extracurricular activities. He wanted to follow his father's footsteps into the military by pursuing a career as a pilot, but when his mom protested, he applied and was accepted at IIT, Kharagpur.

He graduated from the IIT in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering in the top 10 percent of his class and received the BC Roy gold medal for academic excellence. He received a full scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate College of Engineering.

In the year 2003, Sarin became the Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone. When he resigned in 2008 from his post Vodafone was the world's largest mobile phone company by revenue. It was the firm’s large market presence in India that catapulted Sarin into the limelight. Currently he serves on the boards of Cisco and Safeway, Inc.

Academics

BTech (IIT)

MBA (Haas UC,Berkeley)

Awards

University of California at Berkeley, Haas School Business Leader of Year- 2002

University of California Trust (UK) Award- 2003

Born in Nagpur, Pandit was the Citigroup’s youngest CEO when he took over in 2007. The first Indian to achieve this feat, the job was touted as the toughest in the world due to the company’s poor performance.

A brilliant boy in school, he moved to US when he was 16. After finishing his Master’s in electrical engineering and MBA from Columbia University, he was determined to get a PhD in a different subject. In those days, students preferred to either study medicine or engineering. And that was the time when his guide advised him to take up finance, as it was a good field. He followed the advice, and switched to finance.

For a brief span, he taught at Indiana University Bloomington, Columbia’s Business School. He stepped into the corporate world in 1994, as a head of Morgan Stanley. His administrative and technical skills, plus an ability to make himself indispensable to bosses like John J. Mack and Phillip J. Purcell, fuelled his career at Morgan Stanley, where he became the president. He dealt with the Institutional Securities Division, Worldwide Institutional Equities Division. For him, this was an interesting area to work on

“To do well you have to put a lot of yourself into it.”

BS, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University (1976)

MS, Columbia University (1977)

MBA, Columbia Business School, Columbia University (1980)

PhD, Columbia Business School, Columbia University (1986)