Pawan Kumar Chandana: The Indian Space Entrepreneur Taking Private Rockets Global After spending years inside ISRO, Pawan Kumar Chandana helped build Skyroot Aerospace into a private launch company capable of reaching orbit. Vikram-1’s July 2026 success has now turned that ambition into a commercial proposition — and TIME’s recognition of Chandana puts a new face on India’s rapidly expanding space economy. For decades, India’s space story was overwhelmingly associated with one institution: ISRO. That story is changing. On July 18, 2026, a rocket developed by Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace lifted off from Sriharikota and successfully reached Low Earth Orbit. It was not simply another Indian launch. It was the first time a private Indian company successfully conducted an orbital launch from Indian soil. Behind that achievement is Pawan Kumar Chandana, Skyroot’s co-founder and CEO, a former ISRO scientist who moved from designing space systems inside India’s national space programme to building a private company capable of selling launch services to customers around the world. His inclusion in TIME100 Next 2026, a list recognising emerging leaders shaping the future, gives the achievement a wider international context. TIME describes TIME100 Next as a platform for people shaping the future and defining the next

Shantanu Narayen’s Adobe Legacy: Can Anil Chakravarthy Lead the Company Into the Agentic AI Era? After 18 years as Adobe CEO, Indian-origin technology leader Shantanu Narayen will become executive chair on December 1, 2026, handing the CEO role to fellow Indian-origin executive Anil Chakravarthy. The transition gives Adobe something unusual in Silicon Valley: continuity of Indian-origin leadership at a moment when AI is redefining creative software and digital marketing. Adobe is preparing for a historic leadership change—but not a dramatic break with its past. On December 1, 2026, Shantanu Narayen will step down as Adobe’s chief executive after 18 years and become executive chair. He will be succeeded by Anil Chakravarthy, currently president of Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations. Chakravarthy will also join Adobe’s board. The transition is significant for Adobe. It is also significant for the global Indian community. Two Indian-origin technology executives are at the centre of Adobe’s leadership transition, with Narayen’s extraordinary tenure giving way to a successor who has already spent more than six years helping shape Adobe’s enterprise and AI strategy. The bigger question is whether Chakravarthy can take the company through the next technological shift: from cloud-based creative software to

Rati Sahi Levesque: The Indian-Origin Leader Turning Luxury Resale Into a Global Business From a San Francisco family business to becoming the first employee and now CEO of The RealReal, Rati Sahi Levesque represents a different kind of Indian-diaspora success story—one built not simply around technology, but around changing how the world thinks about luxury, ownership and resale. For years, the story of Indian-origin success in America has been closely associated with technology, medicine, finance and engineering. Rati Sahi Levesque’s career offers a different template: fashion, e-commerce, luxury and the emerging circular economy. In September 2026, TIME named Levesque to its TIME100 Next 2026, placing her among the rising figures it sees as shaping the next generation. Her recognition is particularly interesting for the Indian diaspora because her influence has been built inside a distinctly American consumer business—while her journey began with a family business and an entrepreneurial instinct in San Francisco. TIME Today, Levesque is President and CEO of The RealReal, the publicly traded luxury-resale marketplace. She has held the CEO role since October 2024, after years of progressively broader responsibility inside the company. The RealReal But the more revealing part of her story is how she got there.

Building Companies Between Markets and Cultures Indian-origin entrepreneurs are building companies that connect talent, capital and customers across borders. New research puts their contribution to global startup value in sharp focus, while academic studies reveal a more complicated story behind the success: access to diaspora networks can help a young business grow, but immigration rules, hiring practices, cultural differences and the demands of operating across jurisdictions can shape its future. For Indian-origin founders abroad, the business opportunity often begins with a connection between markets. It might be technical talent with roots in India, customers in North America, suppliers in Asia or investors who understand more than one business environment. These connections can help a company cross borders—but they do not remove the friction of building a business in a country where its founder may still be learning the rules. A new Indian Diaspora Index from technology investor Prosus and startup data platform Dealroom offers a striking measure of the scale. Its analysis identifies 205 current and former overseas unicorns with at least one founder who grew up in India, attributing approximately US$560 billion in company value to those founders using a founder-share calculation. The index says 187 of these companies—about

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From Tamil Nadu to Punjab: Five Indian Restaurants Making New York Taste More Like India New York has never been short of Indian restaurants. What has changed is the kind of Indian food the city is being asked to take seriously. For years, the international image of Indian food was often reduced to a familiar collection of dishes: butter chicken, naan, chicken tikka, biryani and perhaps a curry whose exact regional identity was not particularly important. New York is helping change that conversation. Today, Indian restaurants in the city are increasingly presenting regional cooking, family traditions and lesser-known dishes rather than treating “Indian cuisine” as one giant category. That makes New York particularly interesting for Indian travellers, students, expatriates and food lovers. And if someone asks, “Where should I eat Indian food in New York?”, there is no single correct answer. But these five restaurants provide a fascinating introduction to the city’s contemporary Indian dining scene. 1. Semma — South India gets the spotlight 4.2•South Indian restaurant•Closed Website•Directions 60 Greenwich Avenue, West Village If your idea of Indian food begins and ends with butter chicken, Semma may be the restaurant that politely asks you to reconsider your education. Semma specialises