Satya Nadella Tops the Chart in HSBC Hurun Global Indians List 2024
HURUN INDIA
Promoting Entrepreneurship Through Lists and Research. Founded by Anas Rahman Junaid (https://tinyurl.com/arjunhurun)
Mumbai, 21st January 2025
The highly anticipated HSBC Hurun Global Indians List 2024 has been unveiled, and Satya Nadella, Chairman & CEO of Microsoft, has claimed the top position. Nadella’s leadership over the past decade has been marked by a relentless focus on innovation, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation, reinforcing Microsoft's status as a global technology powerhouse.
Top 10 Global Indians Following Nadella, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, and Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, secured the second and third spots, respectively. Together, these leaders represent the transformative influence of Indian-origin professionals in the global tech industry.
List Highlights:
Key Rankings:
Industry Analysis
Trailblazers of Tomorrow The list also celebrates the youngest achievers, with Tanay Tandon, 27, Co-founder and CEO of Commure, leading the way, demonstrating the extraordinary potential of Indian youth in entrepreneurship and innovation.
A Testament to Global Indian Excellence The HSBC Hurun Global Indians List 2024 is a celebration of Indian-origin individuals whose leadership and vision are shaping industries worldwide. Their collective achievements continue to inspire and elevate India's reputation on the global stage.
Pune-based Zerocircle secures Rs 20-crore funding, led by Nithin Kamath's Rainmatter
Sustainable packaging solutions startup Zerocircle has raised Rs 20 crore in its seed funding, led by Nithin Kamath's venture capital firm Rainmattter, with participation from 1Crowd, Trousdale Sarosphere LLC, and environmental advocate Trudie Styler, co-founder of the Rainforest Fund.
Other participants include VC Grid, 7th Gen Ventures, Spectrum Impact, and LNB Group.
The firm plans to utilise the funding to scale production, innovate product lines, and expand into global markets, particularly in regions like the EU and GCC MiddleEast market, where stringent anti-plastic regulations are driving demand for sustainable packaging, said?Neha Jain, founder and Managing Director of Zerocircle to Moneycontrol.?
"We are focusing a lot on Europe and other GCC markets, we have contracts in place. India is a market that we are building for because India has huge volume requirements. When we say 4 million orders, it means nothing here, we need 10X of this. So, we need to build our capacity for this," Jain added.
Jain also added that the seed funding consists of grants from its Sequoia Spark Fellowship Programme. Zerocircle was part of Sequoia's 2023 cohort of?Sequoia Spark Fellowship, which is a $100,000 equity-free grant and mentorship program.
The Pune-based startup founded in 2019 by Neha Jain has patented technology enabling the production of seaweed-based materials within existing manufacturing infrastructures, eliminating the need for additional capital expenditure.
Over the past year, Zerocircle has developed a commercial-grade seaweed coating for food packaging, already securing orders from key players in the takeaway industry. Its products include coated paperboards, food boxes, and trays designed to replace single-use plastics.
"Right now, there is more demand than supply, especially if one can put it at the proximity of the price point that the market is expecting then there are a lot of takers. The first few years we spent scaling the production capacity and coming close to the price point that is agreeable to our consumers," Jain said.
Zerocircle’s roadmap outlines plans to scale production capacity tenfold by 2028 and introduce advanced coatings, flexible films, and enhanced paper products. The firm works with distributors and manufacturers who make the product and not the restaurants and other take-away players directly.
"These innovations aim to replace up to 500 million single-use plastic items annually and 3,000 MT of pieces of single use plastic, addressing a critical environmental challenge. With its disruptive approach and industry recognition, including accolades like the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize, Zerocircle is positioned as a key player in the global fight against plastic pollution," Jain added.
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World Bank warns that US tariffs could reduce global growth outlook
The World Bank on Thursday warned that U.S. across-the-board tariffs of 10% could reduce already lackluster global economic growth of 2.7% in 2025 by 0.3 percentage point if America's trading partners retaliate with tariffs of their own.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Monday, has proposed a 10% tariff on global imports, a 25% punitive duty on imports from Canada and Mexico until they clamp down on drugs and migrants crossing borders into the U.S., and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods. Some countries including Canada have already vowed to retaliate.
The firm plans to utilise the funding to scale production, innovate product lines, and expand into global markets, particularly in regions like the EU and GCC MiddleEast market, where stringent anti-plastic regulations are driving demand for sustainable packaging, said?Neha Jain, founder and Managing Director of Zerocircle to Moneycontrol.?
"We are focusing a lot on Europe and other GCC markets, we have contracts in place. India is a market that we are building for because India has huge volume requirements. When we say 4 million orders, it means nothing here, we need 10X of this. So, we need to build our capacity for this," Jain added.
Jain also added that the seed funding consists of grants from its Sequoia Spark Fellowship Programme. Zerocircle was part of Sequoia's 2023 cohort of?Sequoia Spark Fellowship, which is a $100,000 equity-free grant and mentorship program.
The Pune-based startup founded in 2019 by Neha Jain has patented technology enabling the production of seaweed-based materials within existing manufacturing infrastructures, eliminating the need for additional capital expenditure.
Over the past year, Zerocircle has developed a commercial-grade seaweed coating for food packaging, already securing orders from key players in the takeaway industry. Its products include coated paperboards, food boxes, and trays designed to replace single-use plastics.
"Right now, there is more demand than supply, especially if one can put it at the proximity of the price point that the market is expecting then there are a lot of takers. The first few years we spent scaling the production capacity and coming close to the price point that is agreeable to our consumers," Jain said.
RBI sold $20 billion forex in November, 'room to sell $138 billion more'
MUMBAI: RBI sold $20 billion from its forex reserves to stabilise the rupee in Nov, data released by the central bank on Friday showed. Even as market participants try to gauge the level at which RBI would decide to hold back from depleting its reserves and look at other strategies, foreign brokerage Nomura sees headroom for another $138-billion worth sales.
Representative photo On RBI's forex intervention, Nomura notes that the central bank has net sold approximately $89.4 billion, including spot and forward transactions, since Oct 2024. Despite this, the research finds that India's forex reserves remain adequate. As of Jan 3, 2025, the RBI's forex reserve adequacy ratio stood at about 236%. Although this represents a decline from the peak of 266% in Sept 2024, Nomura asserts that India's reserve adequacy remains strong.
Foreign investors pull out ?44,396 crore from Indian equities in January
Foreign investors have withdrawn ?44,396 crore from Indian equities in January, driven by a strong dollar, rising US bond yields, and expectations of a weak earnings season.
This came following an investment of ?15,446 crore in the month of December, data with the depositories showed. The shift in sentiment comes amid global and domestic headwinds. "The continued depreciation in Indian rupee is exerting significant pressure on foreign investors leading them to pull the money out of the Indian equity markets," Himanshu Srivastava, Associate Director - Manager Research, Morningstar Investment Advisers India, said. In addition to that, higher valuation of Indian equities, despite recent corrections, expectation of a rather weak earning season and uncertainty over the pace of economic growth are making investors wary, he added.
According to the data, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) offloaded shares worth ?44,396 crore from Indian equities so far this month (till January 17).FPIs have been sellers on all days this month except January 2.
Bank of Japan poised to raise rates to highest in 17 years
The Bank of Japan is expected to raise interest rates on Friday barring any market shocks when U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office, a move that would lift short-term borrowing costs to levels unseen since the 2008 global financial crisis.
A tightening in policy would underscore the central bank's resolve to steadily push up interest rates, now at 0.25%, to near 1% - a level analysts see as neither cooling nor overheating Japan's economy.
At the two-day meeting ending on Friday, the BOJ is likely to raise its short-term policy rate to 0.5% unless Trump's inaugural speech and executive orders upend financial markets, sources have told Reuters.
In a quarterly outlook report, the board is also expected to raise its price forecasts on growing prospects that broadening wage gains will keep Japan on track to sustainably hit the bank's 2% inflation target.
A hike by the BOJ would be the first since July last year when the move, coupled with weak U.S. jobs data, shocked traders and triggered a rout in global markets in early August.
Keen to avoid a recurrence, the BOJ has carefully prepared markets with clear signals by Governor Kazuo Ueda and his deputy last week that a rate hike was on the cards. The remarks caused the yen to rebound as markets priced in a roughly 80% chance of a rate increase on Friday.