IAS officer’s son tipped to become Microsoft CEO

Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella, son of an IAS officer who was secretary to former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, is being tipped strongly to become chief executive of Microsoft, the storied software company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, according to a raft of business outlets citing sources familiar with deliberations on the matter.

Nadella, 46, is a 22-year Microsoft insider who now heads the company's cloud and enterprise group. If the Microsoft board, which has been searching for a successor to current CEO Steve Ballmer for nearly five months, goes through with his appointment, he will be the top-ranked CEO of Indian-origin, comfortably overtaking Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, which is the world's 44th ranked company in terms of market value. An announcement is expected as early as Friday.

Microsoft is currently the fourth largest company by market cap ($308 billion) after Apple ($450 billion), Exxon Mobil ($442 billion) and Google ($379 billion).