Shivakumar Venkataraman, 52, is from Hyderabad. In 1990, he graduated in computer science engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai.

Venkataraman went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a doctorate in computer science. He then started his professional journey as a summer intern at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, before moving on to IBM as a software engineer.

Venkataraman joined Google in 2003, and eventually assumed responsibility for its core search advertisement business. In January, he was promoted to vice president of the recently-revived division Google Labs, which is home to the company’s research into virtual and augmented reality, more than a decade after it was discontinued.