New Delhi, Feb 3 (IANS): Tech tycoon Sridhar Vembu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of software development firm Zoho Corporation, who is one of the Padma Shri awardees announced by the government of India, on Wednesday thanked National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval for appointing him to the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB).

Vembu took to Twitter to announce the development and said, "I want to thank Shri Ajit Dovalji for appointing me to to the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB). I returned to India to serve the cause of technology led rural development and this advisory role affords me another opportunity to be of service to the nation."

The development comes almost a week after Vembu was among the people who were in the list of Padma Shri awardees this year on the occasion of Republic Day.

On the Zoho corporation website, Vembu said, "We are a state-of-the-art tech company with a very old-fashioned approach to company building."

According to the Zoho website, the company has 60 million users worldwide, including customers like Whirlpool, Fossil, Rogers, Levi's, Philips, Ola, Xiaomi, Renault, Netflix, Mahindra, L'Oreal, Nike, Sony, Apple, IIFL, Daimler, Sodexo and Zomato, among others.

According to 2020 Forbes report, Vembu is among the 59 richest persons in India.

Vembu, who is in his early 50s, founded 'AdventNet' in 1996 to make software products at a time when IT services were the rage. In 2009, he renamed the company 'Zoho Corp' to reflect the transition from a software company serving network equipment vendor to an innovative online applications provider.

Vembu, a Silicon Valley star valued by Forbes at nearly $2.5 billion, moved to a small village in Tenkasi in southern Tamil Nadu in October last year.