More and more Indians are making their mark in the United States.

The world's leading software company, Microsoft, has named India-born Gurdeep Singh Pall as the corporate vice-president Real Time Collaboration Group, Microsoft, at its corporate headquarters in Redmond. Pall has become the first Sikh to be appointed to Microsoft's top echelons.

Pall will be responsible for developing Microsoft's strategy in the real time collaboration space, including the emerging integrated communications and VoIP areas.

The Economic Times, quoting sources, said that Pall's annual pay package is a cool $1 million-plus.

The 38-year-old, Chandigarh-born Pall joined Microsoft in January 1990 as a software design engineer after completing Masters in computer science from University of Oregon. He is an alumnus of St John's High School, Chandigarh.

Pall was then a part of the core team working on Windows NT development on the first version NT 3.1. He then worked on Windows XP in 2001 as general manager of Windows Networking. He has also led the design and implementation of some award winning technologies at Microsoft.

Pall also co-authored the first VPN protocol in the industry 'Point to Point Tunnelling' protocol, which received the prestigious 'Innovation of the Year' award from PC Magazine in 1996.

Meanwhile, in India too, returning NRIs are bagging top positions in multinational companies. For example, Coca-Cola India has appointed Vikas Gupta as marketing head recently. He is back in India after a five-year stretch at the cola major's office in Atlanta, US.

Recently, Britannia [Get Quote] CEO Vinita Bali, Whirlpool [Get Quote] MD Arvind Uppal, PepsiCo marketing chief Punita Lal, Domino CEO Ajay Kaul, head of consulting firm AT Kearney Vivek Gupta, head of HR consulting firm Wattson Wyatt Sanjay Bharwani, and head of networking firm Cisco Rangu Salgame are some NRIs who have returned to India after stints abroad to take up top spots at various MNCs.