Several executives with Indian roots figure in Time’s inaugural Executives of the Year: Tech and Data list, which recognizes 50 leaders working across technology, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital innovation.
The executives featured in the list hold senior positions at companies including Anthropic, OpenAI, S&P Global, Lowe’s, Walmart, Bank of America, Delta Air Lines, Databricks, L’Oréal Groupe, CVS Health, Reddit and DocuSign.
Among the Leaders category is Rahul Patil, chief technology officer at Anthropic. Appointed in October 2025, he oversees technology supporting the company’s Claude AI platform, with Time highlighting his focus on reliability and potential misuse of AI systems. Patil previously spent about five years at Stripe.
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Firdaus Bhathena, executive vice president and chief technology and transformation officer at S&P Global, joined the newly created role in March. He is focused on bringing technology, data and AI together across the financial information company. He previously served as a senior technology executive at CVS Health and founded enterprise software companies WebLine and Relicore.
OpenAI’s Vijaye Raji, chief technology officer of Applications, leads technical teams that help power products across data, experimentation and growth, including ChatGPT and Codex.
Other executives in the Leaders category include Seemantini Godbole of Lowe’s, Suresh Kumar of Walmart, Hari Gopalkrishnan of Bank of America and Amala Duggirala of Delta Air Lines. Their work spans AI assistants, connected retail systems, banking technology and digital tools for travelers.
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The Innovators category includes Keyur Govande of Depop, Naveen Zutshi of Databricks, Charu Jain of Alaska Airlines, Asmita Dubey of L’Oréal Groupe and Ekta Chopra of e.l.f. Beauty. Their work includes AI-assisted marketplace tools, corporate data access, technology integration, generative AI content and agentic AI.
In the Catalysts category, Tilak Mandadi of CVS Health has worked on integrating health data across insurance, pharmacy and care delivery. Amit Puntambekar, Reddit’s chief technology officer, is focused on personalization, discovery, search and moderation. Sagnik Nandy, DocuSign’s chief technology officer, has led the rollout of its AI-powered Intelligent Agreement Management platform.
Time said the inaugural Executives of the Year platform is intended to recognize leaders driving change across major business functions, with plans to expand into additional fields in the coming year.