Mumbai: For the first time in Bata’s 126 years history an Indian will lead the firm to ‘Shoe the world’. Bata India’s present CEO Sandeep Kataria (49) has been elevated as global CEO of the company, as current incumbent, Alexis Nasard, moves on.

Kataria takes charge as global CEO with immediate effect as Nasard, who is stepping down after almost five years as CEO, is reportedly set to join Kantar. An engineer from IIT Delhi and a gold medalist of the 1993 PGDBM batch at XLRI, Kataria has 24 years of experience at Unilever, Yum Brands and Vodafone in India and Europe.

Kataria joined Bata India as CEO in 2017. India is the top market for the Switzerland headquartered for footwear major.

Kataria is in distinguished company. Other Indians at the helm of global organizations includes Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sunder Pichai of Alphabet, Ajay Banga of Master Card, Aravind Krishna of IBM, Laxman Narashiman of Reckitt Benckiser, Ivan Menezes of Diago and Vasanth Narashiman of Novartis.