Tech titan and beacon of India’s software sector

Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy was born on August 20, 1946 in Sidlaghatta, Karnataka, to N Rama Rao and Padavathamma Murthy.

Education

After leading normal life as a school student, the lad set his heart on engineering. He took the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance test and cleared it with high rank and scholarship. The scholarship, however, was inadequate to cover all his educational expenses. Finding the fees unaffordable, Murthy’s father got him to join a local engineering college, the National Institute of Engineering, from where he graduated in 1967 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He earned a master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and pursued a career in the IT sector.

Career
Even though he had no dearth of job offers from some of India’s best companies, Murthy’s pioneering spirit led him to enter the then nascent IT and computers segments. He took up the post of chief systems programmer at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and worked on India’s first time-sharing computer system at the institute. During the 1970s, Murthy worked in many parts of the world but it was his heartfelt desire to return to India. He set up a venture named Softronics. After that venture failed to take off, he joined Patni Computer Systems in Pune. In 1981, Murthy joined hands with six other software professionals such as Nandan Nilekani and NS. Raghavan, among others, with the modest initial capital of ₹10,000.

In the decades that followed, Murthy and his close-knit band of top software professionals oversaw Infosys’s rapid growth as one of India’s leading IT-services companies. Murthy was the Infosys CEO from 1981 till 2002, when co-founder Nandan Nilekani succeeded him. He became the Chairman of the Board in 2002 and the Chief Mentor in 2006.

He retired from Infosys in August 2011, taking the title Chairman Emeritus. It was a measure of Murthy’s visionary leadership that Time magazine described him as the Father of India’s IT Sector.

Infosys became synonymous with innovation in diverse aspects such as technical, managerial and leadership training, software technology, quality, productivity, customer focus, employee satisfaction, and physical and technological infrastructure.

Recognition
Murthy was honoured with the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, for his distinguished contribution to industry in 2000. In 2008, he was decorated with the Padma Vibhushan for his services to India’s IT sector.

Murthy was also honoured with a host of awards such as the CBE from Britain and the Legion d’honneur from France. He was ranked 13th among CNBC’s 25 global business leaders, included in the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time by Fortune in 2012 and The Economist featured him as among the 10 most admired global business leaders (2015).

Personal Life

Murthy married Sudha Kulkarni, well-known author in Kannada and English as well as social activist. They have a son, Rohan, and daughter Akshata.

Interesting facts
1. Murthy drew up the concept of Global Delivery Model and implemented it. It enabled the delivery of high-quality services to clients across the world within tight deadlines at competitive costs.

2. In 1974, Murthy had a bitter but life-changing experience along Bulgaria’s border with present-day Serbia. He was speaking with a girl who could only understand French. Suddenly, a young man who accompanied her lodged a complaint with the police who snatched away Murthy’s passport, treated him very roughly and locked him up in a tiny room without food for five days. The police eventually freed him but not before rudely told him that he was being spared because he came from India, a friendly country. He was then later pushed into the guard’s compartment on a freight train. The ordeal opened Murthy’s eyes to the reality of life in the Communist world and helped reset his course towards compassionate capitalism and entrepreneurship which, in turn, led to the establishment of Infosys.

Source: famouspeople.com, infosys.c