Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, has appointed Indian-born Google CEO Sundar Pichai to its board of directors.

“Sundar has been doing a great job as Google’s CEO, driving strong growth, partnerships and tremendous product innovation. I really enjoy working with him and I’m excited that he is joining the Alphabet board,” Alphabet CEO Larry Page said in a statement.

As Google’s CEO, Pichai is responsible for its product development and technology strategy, as well as the company’s day-to-day operations.

He joined Google in 2004 and helped lead the development of key consumer products which are now used by over a billion people.

In 2014, Pichai took over product, engineering and research efforts for all of Google’s products and platforms.

After years of working closely with Google’s cofounders, Page and Sergey Brin, Pichai became Google’s CEO in August 2015.

Pichai, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his US visit in June, told reporters after the meeting that Google was excited about investing in India.

During a visit to Kolkata earlier this year, Pichai expressed confidence that big global software companies will start emerging from India in the next five to 10 years.

“In a 5-to-10-year time frame, we will see big global software companies coming out of India and we will be used to it,” Pichai said while interacting with students at his alma mater, IIT-Kharagpur, from where he earned his degree in metallurgical engineering.

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