N. R. Narayana Murthy co-founder of infosys technologics ltd.

His is one of the most

Inspiring

stories. Being born with a wooden spoon in his mouth did not deter him from pursuing his dreams. Today, he is counted among one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time and has been an inspiration for many to chase their

Dreams

and make it big. But nothing came easy for him. He had to work extremely hard and brave innumerable

Challenges

to be successful. Co-founder of

Infosys Technologies Ltd.

(a multinational corporation in India),

N. R. Narayana Murthy

is larger than life and has made his way to

Glory

through sheer hard work, self belief,

Determination

, and

Perseverance

. He was the chairman, chief executive officer ceo, president and chief mentor of the company before retiring and taking the title of

Chairman Emeritus

.

Early Life

Born in Shidlaghatta, chikkaballapura district of karnataka to lower-middle-class parents, Mr. Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy always wanted to pursue engineering though his father wanted him to be a civil servant. He cleared the IIT entrance exam but due to financial constraints, he joined a local engineering college ( NIE Mysore) where he studied Bachelor of Electrical Engineering. He went on to complete his M.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

He settled for a job in IIM Ahmedabad that came along with several offers from well-known companies like ECIL , telco, Air India, etc. He worked on India’s first time-sharing computer system and also designed and implemented a BASIC interpreter for Electronics Corporation of India Limited.
Always wanting to be an

Entrepreneur

, he started a company, softronics but it failed. He joined Patni Computers, Mumbai as general manager in 1977.

Beginning of a New Dawn

In 1981, Mr Murthy founded Infosys. The company today is a highly innovative software services global company listed on NYSE in the US and on the Bombay Stock Exchange in Mumbai. Mr. Murthy conceptualized, articulated, and implemented the Global Delivery Model (GDM) which has become the backbone of the Indian software industry. GDM is based on collaborative distributed software development principles and has resulted in the delivery of superior quality software to global customers delivered on time and within budget. Mr. Murthy also introduced the concept of a 24-hour workday, to the world.
Under his leadership, Infosys became the leader in innovation, be it technical, managerial, and leadership training,software technology, quality, productivity, customer focus, employee satisfaction, or physical and technological infrastructure. The Indian government’s decisive move toward economic liberalization and deregulation in the 1990s contributed to dramatic growth in the country’s technology and computer sectors. Taking advantage of the government’s decision, Mr. Murthy aggressively expanded his company’s services and client base , taking his business overseas with consulting, systems integration, software development, and product engineering services. In 1999, Infosys joined NASDAQ, becoming the first indian company to be listed on an american stock exchange.
In April 2004, the bengaluru infosys had posted $1.06 billion in total annual revenues an astonishing 33 percent increase in revenues over the previous fiscal year. The company’s growth was all the more remarkable because it came in the midst of a global downturn in the information technology industry.
After being the CEO for 21 years, he stepped down in 2002 and gave his post to nandan nilekani. Mr. Murthy was chairman of the board till 2006. He became the chief mentor and in 2011, he assumed the post of Chairman Emeritus. When Murthy retired in 2006, he left behind a company with some 70,000 employees and $3 billion a year in revenues. His wife, sudha, a well known author, has been a pillar of support for Mr. Murthy.

Currently, Mr. Murthy serves on the boards of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, and the United Nations Foundation. He has served on the boards of the Ford Foundation in New York, HSBC, and Unilever in London. He is a member of the advisory board of the University of Tokyo (Japan), ESSEC Business School (France), IESE Business School (Spain), and Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC – Brazil). He is also a member of the Board of Governors and Trustees of the Asian Institute of Management, Manila, and many more prestigious organizations.
He has served as a member of the boards of various well-known universities in the US like Cornell University, Wharton School, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and the Rhodes Trust at Oxford. He was the Chairman of the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), the #1 business school in India, and the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI).
He has also served on the international advisory boards of Yale University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business, Singapore Management University INSEAD, Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok), the Indian School of Business (Hyderabad), and the International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru.
He is a Trustee of the Infosys Science Foundation, which governs the Infosys Prize, an annual award, to honor the outstanding achievements of researchers and scientists.
A Hindi film about his life is in the pipeline. Not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he went on to become a global icon. Overcoming all the odds through

Hard work

and

Self-belief

and creating a remarkable benchmark, Mr. Murthy is a legend in his own right. Global India Business Forum salutes the indomitable spirit of this legend. This article is a humble token of appreciation and respect for Mr. Murthy.