N. R. Narayana Murthy Biography: N. R. Narayana Murthy, one of the brilliant minds behind the establishment of the Indian multinational corporation Infosys Ltd., is a contemporary industrialist ranked among the greatest Indian industrialists. Murthy has played a significant role in assuring the success of Infosys, a leading IT company that provides business consulting, information technology, and outsourcing services. Early on, Murthy exhibited signs of grandeur and received his education at one of India’s premier technological institutions.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he worked in Pune for Patni Computer Systems. He had always desired to become an entrepreneur and planned to establish a large company that would provide employment opportunities for the nation’s youth. He co-founded Infosys with six other software professionals, including Nandan Nilekani and N. S. Raghavan, using just Rs. 10,000 in initial capital. Over the years, the company expanded exponentially to become one of India’s leading IT service providers. Time magazine referred to him as the “Father of Indian IT Sector” due to his company’s immense contribution to the development of India’s IT sector. For his contributions to the Indian industrial sector, he has received a number of accolades.
N. R. Narayana Murthy Biography
| Name: | N. R. Narayana Murthy |
| Birth Date: | 20 August 1946 |
| Place Of Birth: | Sidlaghatta, Karnataka |
| Death: | 22 August 2011 |
Early Years
On 20 August 1946, he was born in Sidlaghatta, Karnataka, to a middle-class family.
His uncle was a government employee, and Narayana’s father desired him to follow in his footsteps. However, the young lad had other ambitions; he desired to become an engineer because it was the “in” thing in India at the time.
After concluding his secondary education, he took the India Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance exam and passed it with a high score and a scholarship. However, the scholarship was insufficient to cover all of his educational costs, and his father was unable to pay the fees.
On the advice of his father, he enrolled in a local engineering institution, the National Institute of Engineering, and earned a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1967.
In 1969, he attended the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur and received his master’s degree. During his time at the IIT, he had a fortuitous encounter with a renowned American computer scientist, whose lectures left him in awe. This motivated Narayana to enter the IT industry in the future.
As there were very few computer science graduates in India at the time, he was inundated with employment offers upon completion of his course. He received employment offers from HMT, Telco, and Air India, all of which offered lucrative salaries.
However, when a professor from the India Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad arrived to speak with the bright young man about an intriguing job opening at the institute, he turned down all of the offers.
N. R. Narayana Murthy Career
He assumed the role of principal systems programmer at IIM, Ahmedabad. There, he worked on implementing India’s first time-sharing computer system, making IIM the third business school in the world after Harvard and Stanford to install a time-sharing system.
Work at the IIM was arduous but extremely rewarding. He used to labour 20 hours per day and gained a great deal of knowledge. Murthy still believes that joining the IIM was the greatest professional decision he has ever made.
In the 1970s, he worked abroad, and his time in Paris had a profound impact on him. Initially a staunch leftist who supported communism, he ultimately concluded that compassionate capitalism and the massive creation of employment were the only practical means of eradicating poverty.
He gained a great deal of knowledge from western countries, but ultimately desired to reside in India and establish a business in his homeland. He founded Softronics, a company that collapsed after only a year and a half. Consequently, he joined the Patni Computer Systems in Pune.
In 1981, he co-founded “Infosys Consultants Pvt. Ltd.” (currently known as Infosys Ltd.) with six other software professionals in Pune, India, with a capital of Rs. 10,000. In 1983, the corporation moved its headquarters from Pune to Bangalore.
Since 1981, Murthy has served as the CEO of Infosys. He assumed this position in 1981. Co-founder Nandan Nilekani succeeded him as chairman in 2002.
He was appointed board chairman in 2002 and chief mentor in 2006. In August of 2011, he departed from the company and was given the title Chairman Emeritus.
He has served on the boards of DBS Bank, Unilever, and ICICI as a director. He serves on the advisory committees and councils of numerous institutions, including Cornell University, Ford Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, and the Indo-British Partnership.
In June 2013, he returned to Infosys as Executive Chairman and Additional Director after his absence negatively affected the company’s performance. He resigned as Executive Chairman in June of 2014.
Major Works
Murthy is best known as one of the co-founders of Infosys Ltd., one of the world’s largest IT services companies with headquarters in India.
Infosys became the first Indian company to be listed on the Nasdaq under his leadership. It also became the first publicly traded Indian company to generate annual revenue of $1 billion.
N. R. Narayana Murthy Honours & Accomplishments
In 2000, he was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian honour, for his outstanding contributions to industry.
In 2008, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian honour, for his extraordinary contributions to Information Technology in India.
In 2013, he became the first recipient of the Sayaji Ratna Award, which was instituted to commemorate the 151st birthday of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the former ruler of Baroda.
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Personal Life
He is married to Sudha Kulkarni, with whom he shares two children, a son named Rohan Murthy and a daughter named Akshata Murthy. His wife is both a published Kannada and English author and a well-known social activist.
