The tech ‘Twins’: Inspiring journey of two brothers
I am excited to share the inspiring success story of two technology executives who happened to be twin brothers from my home-land Kerala, India.
Thomas Kurian, is the newly-appointed president of Oracle Product Development & George Kurian, is the newly appointed CEO of NetApp. They have their roots in the sleepy village of Pampady off Kottayam town in Kerala, India.
Thomas and his twin brother George, after passing out from St Joseph’s Boys High School, Bengaluru, had joined IIT Madras. Six months into their programme, In 1986, at the age of 17, the twin brothers came to the United States to study at Princeton. Thomas graduated in BA electrical engineering with ‘‘summa cum laude’’ (highest distinction). In the second place was his twin brother George. Below is the brief about their profile.
Thomas Kurian is the president of Oracle Product Development and reports to Oracle executive chairman of the board and chief technology officer Larry Ellison. He is responsible for leading software development and transitioning the company’s technology to Oracle Cloud. Since 2008, Thomas has also led the development for Oracle’s next-generation business applications, Oracle Fusion Applications.
Thomas has been with Oracle since 1996, holding various product management and development positions. Prior to joining Oracle, he worked as a consultant in London, Brussels, and San Francisco with international management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, serving clients in the software, telecommunications, and financial services industries.
Thomas has a BA in electrical engineering from Princeton University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He also has an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He serves as an advisory member on the boards of several international venture funds and software companies.
George Kurian is newly appointed as the CEO of NetApp. In his previous role, George Kurian was the Executive Vice President for Product Operations at NetApp. He was responsible for overseeing the strategy and development of NetApp’s Product and Solutions portfolio. Prior to this role, George was Senior Vice President of the Data ONTAP group at NetApp. He was previously Senior Vice President of the Storage Solutions Group at NetApp where he oversaw the NetApp solutions portfolio and joint partner technology integration roadmaps. He joined NetApp in April 2011.
Prior to joining NetApp, George was Vice President and General Manager of the Application Networking and Switching Technology Group at Cisco Systems. He also led Cisco’s successful development of products and solutions to enable Ethernet-based Converged Networks for Video, Voice and Data.
Prior to Cisco, George was the Vice President for Product Management and Strategy at Akamai Technologies, a Management Consultant with McKinsey and Company and led Software Engineering and Product Management teams at Oracle Corporation.
George holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from Princeton University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University.
This is a unique story of twin brothers, who has become global leaders at the helm of two technology giants.
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