A recent media article lamented that not many Chinese corporate executives have risen to the top of overseas multinational corporations like, say, their India-born counterparts.

As an Indian, I'm aware that most of my compatriots and Indian media evince deep interest in, and even bask in the reflected glory of, Indra Nooyi who leads PepsiCo, Satya Nadella who heads Microsoft Corp and Sundar Pichai who pilots Google Inc.

Many other Indians hold high-level positions in foreign companies. For instance, India's Nikesh Arora is the president and COO of Japan's SoftBank Corp, an investor in China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.