Last week, the world woke up to a big announcement. The shy, hardworking and brilliant Sundar Pichai, had been appointed CEO of Google – one of the biggest IT companies in the world. If, like us, you would like to get to know him better, here are ten interesting facts!

1. Pichairajan Sundar or Sundar Pichai was born in Chennai (Tamil Nadu).
    
2. Sundar Pichai’s father, R.S. Pichai, is a retired engineer who worked in a factory manufacturing electrical relays. His mother is a stenographer.
    
3. In his high school senior year, Sundar was one of the winners of the National Talent Search Examination, an annual Maths and Science competition held in India.
    
4. He graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a degree in Metallurgical Engineering. He also won a silver medal.
    
5. In 1993, Sundar was awarded a scholarship to study for an M.S. degree at Stanford University.
    
6. Sundar went on to do an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
    
7. He was recognized as a Siebel Scholar, a program which looks at the brightest students in STEM (business, computer science, bioengineering, energy science) fields in the US, Japan, Italy, China, and France.
    
8. Sundar Pichai joined Google in 2004. He has overseen the development of popular Google products like Chrome, Drive, Gmail, Google Apps, and Android.
    
9. Sundar Pichai is known for being a soft-spoken, nice guy who steers clear of politics. On his appointment, a blogger tweeted, “Proof that nice guys can win.”
    
10. Sundar Pichai is one of the triad of Indians who rule the IT world. The other two are Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft) and Shiva Nadar (Chairman, HCL).