The new Twitter leader is the latest in a series of Indian-born professional honchos born in India | Business and Economic Affairs

Parag Agrawal’s appointment to the top Twitter account enhances the role of immigrants in some of the world’s top companies.

Twitter Inc. Monday became the latest Silicon Valley group to elect an Indian-born chief, joining the likes of Microsoft and Google in recognizing Asia as one of the world’s richest nations with the most technological skills.

The appointment of Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal to the top Twitter account enhances the share that migrants face in major technology companies around the world. Links with Satya Nadella of Microsoft Corp., Shantanu Narayen of Adobe Inc., Arvind Krishna of International Business Machines Corp. by Sundar Photosi of Alphabet Inc. among the top US corporate leaders from India. Among them, a group of executives run companies with a combined market value of around $ 5 trillion. Outside of technology, Indra Nooyi led PepsiCo Inc. for 12 years and Ajay Banga is the CEO of Mastercard Inc. after ten years as CEO.

Like his Valley counterparts, Agrawal hails from modern technology and has carried out his duties within the company. At age 37, he is the CEO of every S&P 500 company. Agrawal received his engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, which as the country’s largest technical college has produced generations of politicians and industry leaders, including Photosi and Krishna. He did so in Silicon Valley after moving to Stanford University to study computer science.

“Being an Indian is a great opportunity now, people expect us to be good engineers and good supervisors,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a Harvard Law School senior and author of a book on Nadella’s rise in Microsoft. “As far as I know, Parag Agrawal shares Satya beliefs and has a similar standard of care.”

Twitter co-founder and outgoing CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledged Agrawal’s skills as a “change” in his resignation. But it will be the skill of the new leader in handling thorn issues such as free speech, racial relations and relationships with governments that have recently been tested.

In a rare questionnaire a year ago, Agrawal described Twitter’s approach to dealing with lies as “a multidisciplinary approach.” Based on Dorsey’s long-standing emphasis on Twitter’s political neutrality, he added that “we try not to judge the truth, we are focusing too much on what could be harmful.”

In the country of his birth, where Twitter has about 20 million users, the Agrawal company was attacked by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on several fronts. Officials there criticized the reluctance to download messages to support farmers’ protests and the way they reacted to tweets with leaders of all political parties. Twitter also performs a similar function in domestic politics as it does in the US, Modi account alone has 73 million followers.

Promoting Agrawal will help, according to Wadhwa. “Jack’s arrogance thwarted many governments,” he said. “If you look at how Microsoft has not been a left or right target in the US, it is because of Satya and her ability to listen to criticism and maintain discipline. I hope Agrawal will do the same.”

To date, Agrawal has a short history and its focus is on drug development and market research. He was named the first well-known Twitter engineer for his role in helping to promote audience growth and finances before becoming a CTO. Now the CEO, he has realized that traveling the right path with India is essential to developing goals to expand Twitter reach. The country is the largest user of WhatsApp for Meta Platforms Inc. With half a billion users, YouTube for Alphabet characters has a large audience and Twitter considers it to be one of the fastest growing markets.