SIMPLE, SELFLESS, SUPER RICH
N.R. Narayana Murthy is an Indian industrialist, software
engineer and one of the 7 founders of Infosys Technologies,
a global consulting and IT services company based in
India.
Mr.
Narayana Murthy is undoubtedly one of the most famous
persons from Karnataka. He is known not just for building
the biggest IT Empire in India but also for his simplicity.
Almost every important dignitary visits Infosys campus.
The beauty about his family is that they believe in
sharing their wealth with the needy.
Life
style
Born
into a Kannada Madhva Brahmin family in Mysore, India
on August 20, 1946
He
graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from
the National Institute of Engineering, University of Mysore
in 1967
After
attending government school, and received his master's
degree from IIT Kanpur in 1969.
His
first job was at IIM Ahmedabad as chief systems programmer
where he worked on a time-sharing system and designed
and implemented a BASIC interpreter for ECIL (Electronics
Corporation of India Limited).
After
IIM Ahmedabad, he then joined Patni Computer Systems in
Pune. Before moving to Mumbai, Murthy met his wife Sudha
Murthy in Pune who at the time was an engineer working
at Tata Engineering and Locomotive Co. Ltd. (Telco, now
known as Tata Motors) in Pune. In 1981.
He
founded Infosys in 1981 along with six software professionals.
He is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor Officer
of Infosys.
His
vision or belief about infosys is “I want Infosys
to be a place where people of different genders, nationalities,
races and religious beliefs work together in an environment
of intense competition but utmost harmony, courtesy
and dignity to add more and more value to our customers
day after day.”
Corporate
profile
He
served as president of the National Association of Software
and Service Companies (NASSCOM), India from 1992 to 1994.
Mr.
Murthy is a member of the National Information Technology
Task Force of India, and also of the Prime Minister's
Council on Trade and Industry. He is a Director on the
board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Murthy
served as CEO of Infosys for twenty years, and was succeeded
by co-founder Nandan Nilekani in March 2002.
His
general beliefe that “Our assets walk out of the
door each evening. We have to make sure that they come
back the next morning.”
He
is the chairman of the governing body of both the International
Institute of Information Technology - Bangalore, and the
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Mr.
Murthy sits on the Board of Governors of the renowned
"Harvard Business School of the East" --- the
Asian Institute of Management (AIM), a premier graduate
school of business located in the Philippines; one of
only two business schools in Asia to be internationally
recognized with both AACSB and EQUIS accreditations.
He
is also a member of the Advisory Boards and Councils of
various well-known universities – such as the Stanford
Graduate School of Business, the Corporate Governance
initiative at the Harvard Business School, Yale University
and the University of Tokyo’s President's Council.
Murthy
serves as an independent director on the board of the
DBS Bank of Singapore. This is the largest government-owned
bank in Singapore.
He
also serves as a director on the Central Board of the
Reserve Bank of India, as the co-chairman of the Indo-British
Partnership, as a member of the Prime Minister's council
on trade and industry, as a member of the Asia Advisory
Board of British Telecommunications plc. and as a member
of the Board of NDTV, India.
Life
time achivaments
He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors.
in
1996-97, he was awarded the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership
Award.
In
1998, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, one
of the premier institutes of higher learning in India,
conferred on him the Distinguished Alumnus Award,
In
1999, BusinessWeek named him one of the nine entrepreneurs
of the year and he was also featured in the BusinessWeek's
'The Stars of Asia' (for three successive years - 1998,
1999 and 2000).
In
2000, he was awarded the Padma Shri, a civilian award
by the Government of India.
In
2001, he was named by TIME / CNN as one of the twenty-five,
most influential global executives, a group selected for
their lasting influence in creating new industries and
reshaping markets. He was
awarded
the Max Schmidheiny Liberty 2001 prize ( Switzerland),
in recognition of his promotion of individual responsibility
and liberty.
He
was the first recipient of the Indo-French Forum Medal
in the year 2003, awarded by the Indo-French Forum, in
recognition of his role in promoting Indo-French ties.
He was voted the World Entrepreneur of the Year - 2003
by Ernst & Young. He was one of the two people named
as Asia's Businessmen of the Year for 2003 by Fortune
magazine.
TIME magazine’s “Global Tech Influentials”
list (August 2004) named Mr. Murthy as one of the ten
leaders who are helping shape the future of technology.
He topped the Economic Times Corporate Dossier list of
India's most powerful CEOs for two consecutive years –
2004 and 2005.
In December 2005, Narayana Murthy was voted as the 7th
most admired CEO/Chairman in the world in a global study
conducted by Burson-Marsteller with the Economist Intelligence
Unit .
The Economist ranked him 8th among the top 15 most admired
global leaders (2005). He was ranked 28th among the world's
most-respected business leaders by the Financial Times
(2005).
In May 2006, Narayana Murthy has, for the fifth year running,
emerged the most admired business leader of India in a
study conducted by Brand-comm, a leading Brand Consulting,
Advertising and PR firm.
He is an IT advisor to several Asian countries. He retired
on 20th August, 2006. However he continues as the Non-Executive
Chairman .
In November 2006, TIME magazine again voted him as one
of the Asian heroes who have brought about revolutionary
changes in Asia in the last 60 years.
"Ships are safest in the harbor but they are not
meant to be there. They have to sail long and hard and
face stormy seas to reach the comfort of a desirable destination"
In 2007, some Indians criticized Murthy as unpatriotic
when, during a visit from Indian president Abdul Kalam,
he arranged for instrumental versions of the national
anthem instead of sung versions, saying in a press statement
that he did not want to embarrass foreign visitors.
He is known to lead an unpretentious lifestyle in his
modest residence in Bangalore along with wife Sudha Murthy
and has a reputation for being a calm, self-effacing,
soft-spoken person and caring father like figure for the
employees of Infosys, shunning pricey suits, and avoiding
a high-flying lifestyle (he is known to fly economy class).
By his ‘simple living high thinking’ phenomenon,
he has become the most admired business leader among the
business schools in India.
References:
www.infosys.com/about/narayana_murthy.asp
www.karnataka.com/personalities/narayana-murthy
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.R._Narayana_Murthy
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