Will India-born executives bag Obama tech job?

Two prominent India-born executives are the frontrunners for the newly-created post of federal chief technology officer in the incoming Barack Obama Administration.

The two leading candidates are Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer (CTO) of Silicon Valley networking giant Cisco Systems and Vivek Kundra, who holds the same title in the government of Washington DC, US financial magazine BusinessWeek today quoted "sources with knowledge of the situation" as saying.

Warrior, who previously was the CTO at Motorola, represents hard-core technology expertise. Kundra, who was named to the DC post in 2007, has held similar government positions in the past and has a reputation for using technology to make government more open and inclusive, the report said.

Neither the Obama transition team nor the two executives would comment on their potential selection.

The President-elect is expected to announce his pick for CTO in a matter of days.

One of the sources told the magazine that the selection is being held up because it is not yet clear how the CTO will interact with the government's chief information officer and with the new cyber-security czar, another position that has not yet been filed.

Agencies