Who is Irina Ghose, the IIT-BHU graduate and former Microsoft MD now leading Anthropic India?

Irina Ghose – MD of Anthropic

Anthropic has named Irina Ghose as its Managing Director for India as the company prepares to set up its first office in the country. The appointment comes at a time when artificial intelligence is moving from pilot projects to large-scale deployment across sectors. With more than 30 years in the technology industry, Ghose steps into the role with deep technical knowledge, strong managerial training, and long experience in leading enterprise transformation. From her days as an engineering student at IIT to heading Microsoft India and now leading Anthropic’s India foray, her journey shows consistent growth built on expertise and execution.

From IIT classrooms to global AI leadership

Ghose started her studies at the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi, where she did her undergraduate in Electrical Engineering. An education at an IIT is renowned for its high academic standards and focus on analytical thinking. For Ghose, it translated into early encounters with systems thinking, problem, solving, and engineering basics when India’s technology ecosystem was still evolving.She later pursued an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur. The management programme added a new dimension to her technical training. Courses in strategy, finance, organisational behaviour, and leadership broadened her perspective beyond engineering. The combination of an IIT degree and an XLRI MBA equipped her with both technical credibility and boardroom confidence — a pairing that would define her leadership style in the years ahead.

Early career and rise in the technology sector

Ghose’s first professional ventures were in IT sectors of India which were rapidly growing. She was engaged with companies like HCL and Wipro. The experience of these initial jobs helped her directly connecting with the enterprise clients and also understanding large, scale technology implementations. The time was such that Indian IT services were becoming globally known, and she was a member of that growth era.Her longest and most defining stint was at Microsoft India. Over more than two decades, she moved through multiple leadership roles across business units. Each phase brought larger responsibilities, from managing key accounts to driving sector-wide digital transformation initiatives.She eventually became Managing Director of Microsoft India. In that role, she led enterprise adoption of cloud and AI solutions across industries including banking and financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and government. Her work involved guiding organisations through complex digital transitions — modernising infrastructure, integrating cloud platforms, and deploying AI solutions for real-world use cases.Colleagues and industry observers often associated her leadership with ecosystem building. She worked closely with startups, partners, system integrators, and policymakers, strengthening Microsoft’s presence across India’s enterprise landscape. Under her watch, AI and cloud moved from being buzzwords to business tools delivering measurable outcomes.

Leadership style and focus areas

Responsible technology adoption has been a constant thread running through Ghose’s career. She is turning constantly innovation that goes hand in hand with accountability, safety, and long, term value. With the increasing importance of AI in business strategy, her focus has been on the shift from mere experiments to real, large, scale implementation.At Anthropic India, her mandate includes shaping the company’s strategy, expanding teams, deepening developer engagement, and building partnerships with enterprises, academic institutions, and policymakers. Anthropic’s AI assistant, Claude, already has a strong user base in India.India is currently the second-largest global market for Claude.ai. Anthropic’s Economic Index notes that Indian users lean heavily toward technical applications, with nearly half of usage centred on computer and mathematical tasks. Ghose’s experience in enterprise AI adoption aligns closely with this demand profile.

A career built on steady momentum

Irina Ghose’s work trajectory has been smooth and consistent. The technical foundations of her engineering degree, the business acumen from her MBA, and her first work experiences in IT industries together constituted her triple panel of professional skills. Working two decades at Microsoft she got ample leadership experience at various scales. Her new position in Anthropic is her next step in the AI world.Her story is an example of how good basics and the ability to change can be great enablers of the highest positions. Anthropic choosing her sends a message that they are committed to partnerships, ethical AI usage, and long, term development in India.