Truly deserved! 'Champions of Change' award for Nadella this year

The 'Champions of Change' programme was created as an opportunity for the White House to feature individuals doing extraordinary things to empower and inspire members of their communities.

US President Barack Obama plans to honour Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella with the 'Champions of Change' award for bringing about change within his company to support working families.

"Microsoft recently announced that over the next year it will make changes to ensure that a wide variety of suppliers that do business with Microsoft in the US provide at least 15 days of paid leave each year to their employees who handle Microsoft work," the White House said as it announced the names of recipients of the Champions of Change Award.

Before being named CEO in February 2014, 47-year-old Nadella held leadership roles in both enterprise and consumer businesses across the company.

Joining Microsoft in 1992, he quickly became known as a leader who could span a breadth of technologies and businesses to transform some of Microsoft's biggest product offerings.

Originally from Hyderabad, he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University, a master's degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago.

'Champions of Change' award is given to those who support working families and have helped to bring about change within their companies, communities or organisations by advocating for commonsense paid sick and paid leave policies, equal pay and an end to pregnancy discrimination to support families, businesses, and economy.

According to the White House, the President remains focused on middle-class economics -- adhering to the simple idea that economy works best when it's working for everyone.

Republicans in Congress continue to take a different approach, offering huge tax giveaways to the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of the middle class, it alleged.

Earlier this week, the White House released a Middle Class Tax report highlighting his budget proposals to help those 44 million middle-class Americans.

The 'Champions of Change' programme was created as an opportunity for the White House to feature individuals doing extraordinary things to empower and inspire members of their communities.