SYDNEY -(Dow Jones)- Credit Suisse said Tuesday it has hired Edward Jewell-Tait to be managing director and head of private banking in Australia. Tait is replacing Ray McGregor, who is moving to Singapore with Credit Suisse. Tait was most recently head of investment advisory and distribution at Caledonia Investments. He has also worked at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AU) and Macquarie Group Ltd. (MQG.AU). Copyright © 2011 Dow Jones Newswires than 80% of its revenue from the U.S. and Europe and fluctuations in exchange rates affect the company when it converts its foreign earnings into rupees. The rupee rose to a six-month high against the greenback in early April, but has lost some of the gains since as it fell to a three-month low last Wednesday. Mahalingam said the business environment for the company remains good, despite macroeconomic concerns in the U.S. and Europe. He said the company hasn't lost any business opportunities in the U.S. because of rules that limit the number of work visas there. Tata Consultancy and its peers take workers from India to the U.S. to do temporary jobs for clients. The U.S. issues just 65,000 a year under the H-1B visa program that allows high-skilled professionals into the U.S. for longer-term work, and the companies have been demanding an increase in that number to help them take up more projects there. "The visa issues have been around for a while, especially [on staff traveling] to the U.S.," Mahalingam said. "I don'tgle but otherwise span many disciplines. One winner wants to create a mobile banking system for the developing world. Another is working to create cheaper biofuels. One wants to build robots that can help out around the house. The prizes come at a time when debate in the U.S. over the value of higher education has become heated. New graduates mired in student loan debt are encountering one of the toughest job markets in decades. Rising tuitions and diminishing prospects have led many to ask whether college is actually worth the time and money. "Turning people into debt slaves when they're college students is really not how we end up building a better society," Thiel says. Thiel made his fortune as a co-founder of online payment service PayPal shortly after graduating from Stanford Law School. He then became the first major investor in Facebook. In conversation and as a philanthropist, Thiel pushes his strong belief that innovation has stagnated in the U.S. and that radical solutions are needed to push civilization forward. The "20 Under 20" fellowship is one such effort. Thiel believes that the best young minds can contribute more to society by skipping college and bringing their ideas straight to the real world. And he has the shining example of Facebook to back up his claim. Thiel's faith in the world-changing potential of Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg's idea led him to invest $500,000 in the company, a stake that is now worth billions. Still, the Zuckerbergs of the tech industry are famous because they are the exceptions. Silicon Valley is littered with decades-worth of failed tech startups. Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship and a writer for TechCrunch and Bloomberg Businessweek, has assailed Thiel's program for sending what he sees as the message that anyone can be Mark Zuckerberg. "Silicon Valley lives in its own bubble. It sees the world through its own prism. It's got a distorted view," Wadhwa says. "All the people who are making a fuss are highly educated. They're rich themselves. They've achieved success because of their education. There's no way in hell we would have heard about Peter Thiel if he hadn't graduated from Stanford," he says. Thiel says the "20 Under 20" program shouldn't be judged on the basis of his own educational background or even the merits of his critique of higher education. He urges his critics to wait and see what the fellows achieve over the next two years. According to data co