George Kurian, who grew up in Bengaluru, has just been appointed CEO of the $6-billion, US-based computer stor... Read More

BENGALURU: George Kurian , who grew up in Bengaluru, has just been appointed CEO of the $6-billion, US-based computer storage and data management company NetApp .

As remarkable as that is, the more remarkable part of this story is the near identical journeys that George and his twin brother Thomas Kurian , president of Oracle , have had.

They are said to have been identical twins. Both grew up in Bengaluru, studied together at the St Joseph’s Boys High School, and both got into IIT Madras.

Both left IIT within six months when they got admission into Princeton University. Singapore-based entrepreneur Varun Chandran, who has worked for NetApp and Oracle, writes in his blog: “Thomas graduated in BA electrical engineering with ‘‘summa cum laude’’ (highest distinction). In the second place was his twin brother George.”

Both then had highly successful corporate careers. Now, George is CEO of NetApp, just six months after Thomas was appointed president of Oracle responsible for software development, making him then the single most senior executive in the company after co-CEOs Safra Catz and Mark Hurd.

The twins hail from a family in Pampady in Kottayam district in Kerala. Their father was the general manager of Graphite India in Bengaluru, news agency IANS had reported in January following Thomas’ appointment as president in Oracle.

George joined NetApp in 2011. Prior to that he was VP and GM of the application networking and switching technology group at Cisco. Prior to Cisco, he was with Akamai Technologies, he was a management consultant with McKinsey and Co, and he led software engineering and product management teams at Oracle. George now replaces Tom Georgens as CEO; Georgens has been CEO since 2009.

On a visit to Bengaluru last year, where NetApp has 2,000 of its 12,500 employees, George spoke exclusively to TOI where he was “most excited by the people and the innovations that we bring to market being led out of India.” He noted that two of the company’s most important technologies - the storage efficiency technology portfolio and the multi-tenant capabilities offered to service providers - were both developed and led out of Bangalore. He said NetApp’s India operations were the cornerstone of its APac business.

On George’s appointment, NetApp said: “…we have the utmost confidence in George's ability to lead the company, given his deep knowledge of NetApp and support from a strong executive team. George has deep relationships with customers and partners globally and is committed to strengthening those relationships going forward.”

When Thomas Kurian was appointed president at Oracle, chairman Larry Ellison wrote in an email to employees: “He (Thomas Kurian) has a long track record of developing suites of software products that go to achieve pre-eminent success in the marketplace.”

It can’t get more identical than this.