Snowflake, the multibillion-dollar data cloud company headquartered in Montana, had appointed Sridhar Ramaswamy as its CEO. So, who is Sridhar Ramaswamy? The first Indian descent who has taken the helm at Snowflake, joining the ranks of other prominent Indian CEOs such as Sundar Pichai of Google and Satya Nadella of Microsoft.
Ramaswamy, previously the head of Google’s advertising division, played a pivotal role in its growth from $1.5 billion to over $100 billion over 15 years. He left Google three years after Sundar Pichai became CEO. His departure was followed by the founding of Neeva, an ad-free search engine, reflecting his disillusionment with Google’s data-tracking practices.
Following Snowflake’s acquisition of Neeva in 2023, Ramaswamy was named CEO and also became a member of the board of directors. Snowflake currently boasts a market capitalization of Rs 399,680 crore.
Ramaswamy, an IIT Madras graduate, is renowned for his expertise in web search technology and artificial intelligence. He is now leading a global team of 6,000 employees towards new AI frontiers. Born in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, Ramaswamy enjoys reading and working out in his leisure time.
Ramaswamy co-founded Neeva with Vivek Raghunathan, a former vice president of engineering at Google. Neeva aimed to offer an ad-free search experience through affordable subscriptions, setting it apart from Google’s targeted advertising model. Despite initial popularity, Neeva struggled to compete against Google’s dominance. Nonetheless, nearly a dozen Google employees joined Neeva in various roles, drawn by its innovative vision.
Before his tenure at Google, Ramaswamy’s background included work in machine learning development and roles as a researcher and database analyst at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, and Epiphany, Inc. His extensive experience in the tech industry is expected to bring valuable insights to Snowflake’s future endeavors.
