Early life Born into a Kannada Madhwa Brahmin family in Mysore, Karnataka on August 20, 1946.

Murthy graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from theNational Institute of Engineering, University of Mysore in 1967 after attending government school. He received his master's degree from IIT Kanpur in 1969.
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Career
His first position was at IIM Ahmedabad as chief systems programmer[3] where he worked on a timesharing system and designed and implemented aBASIC interpreter for ECIL (Electronics Corporation of India Limited). After IIM Ahmedabad, he 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. Murthy founded Infosys in 1981 in Pune with an initial capital of US $250, most of which was borrowed from his wife Sudha Murty. At its inception, he invited six other engineers to join the company. Murthy served as the founder CEO of Infosys for 21 years, and was succeeded by co-founder Nandan Nilekani in March 2002. At Infosys he articulated, designed and implemented the Global Delivery Model which has become the foundation for the huge success in IT services outsourcing from India. He also lead the company through several key decisions including its listing on the Indian stock exchange and on the NASDAQ. He served as chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies from 1992 to 1994.
[4]

In August 2004, TIME listed him under Global Tech Influentials as one of the ten leaders who are helping shape the future of technology.[citation
needed]

In November 2006, TIME again voted him as one of

the Asians who have brought about revolutionary changes in Asia in the last 60 years.[citation needed] Murthy retired from his executive position at Infosys on 20 August 2006. However, he continues as the Chairman Emeritus of the Board.[5] Murthy started a new venture capital fund called Catamaran Venture Fund with the money he got by selling 800,000 Infosys shares worth 174 crores.[citation needed] Sudha Murthy also gave him 430 crores, which she got by selling quarter of her 1.6% stake in Infosys.[citation needed]

[edit]Board

memberships

Murthy serves as an independent director on the boards of HSBC, DBS Bank and Unilever. He also serves on the boards of the Ford Foundation, UN Foundation, Indo-British Partnership, and NDTV. He is the chairman of the Governing board of Public Health Foundation of India [6] He is a member of the Advisory Boards and Councils of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Corporate Governance initiative at the Harvard Business School, the Indian School of Business,Cornell University committee on academic affairs, the committee on alumni affairs and development at Yale University, the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business, and the University of Tokyos President's Council. He is a member of the Board of Directors of INSEAD, the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Singapore Management University, Asian Institute of Management(AIM), the Board of Members of School of Management at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Asia Business Council and Business Advisory Council of Great Lakes Institute of Management andInternational Institute of Information Technology - Bangalore. He also serves as a British Telecommunications. [edit]Personal

life

His wife, Sudha Murthy (ne Kulkarni), is an Indian social worker and accomplished author. She is known for her philanthropic work through the Infosys Foundation. Her sister, Jayashree Despande is wife of enterpreneur and founder of US-based Sycamore Networks, Gururaj Deshpande. They have two children - Rohan and Akshata. Rohan is married to Venu Srinivasan's (of TVS motors) daughter Lakshmi Venu. Akshata Murthy is married to Rishi Sunak. Murthy is the brother-in-law of serial entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande[7] and the uncle of former NASSCOM Chairman and MphasiS chief Jerry Rao.

N. R. Narayana Murthy
Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor, Infosys N. R. Narayana Murthy is the Founder-Chairman of Infosys, a global software consulting company headquartered in Bangalore, India. He founded Infosys in 1981. Under his leadership, Infosys was listed on NASDAQ in 1999. Mr. Murthy articulated, designed and implemented the Global Delivery Model which has become

the foundation for the huge success in IT services outsourcing from India. He has led key corporate governance initiatives in India. He is an IT advisor to several Asian countries. He serves on the boards of HSBC, Ford Foundation and the UN Foundation. He served as a member of the Unilever board between 2007 and 2010. He also serves on the boards of Wharton School; Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; Rhodes Trust, and International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore. The Economist ranked Narayana Murthy among the ten most-admired global business leaders in 2005. He topped the Economic Times list of Indias most powerful CEOs for three consecutive years: 2004 to 2006. He has been awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India, the Lgion dhonneur by the Government of France, and the CBE by the British government. He is the first Indian winner of the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year award and the Max Schmidheiny Liberty prize, and has appeared in the rankings of businessmen and innovators published by India Today, Business Standard, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Time, CNN, Fortune, and Financial Times. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a foreign member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Narayana Murthy chats with Business Week (19 July 2000) N.R. Narayana Murthy, the founder and Chairman of India's spectacular technology success story, Infosys Technologies, visited New York recently and met with a team of Business Week editors, including International Managing Editor Bob Dowling, Assistant International Managing Editor Christopher Power, and Asia Editor Sheri Prasso. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation: Q: We hear you've become quite a philanthropist, that you're making large donations with money from sales of your personal Infosys stock. Can you tell us about the money you're giving away? A: I'm somewhat reticent talking about it. I'd be happier skipping to another topic. Q: Can you give us an idea of how much it is? Millions? Tens of millions? A: Well, more, but let me not talk about it. These are topics that are best not discussed. They're best done. Q: At least, what is the objective of the donations you're making? A: The objective is to make sure our institutions of higher learning regain their glory of the '60s and '70s. In India, the cost of inflation has far exceeded the increased support that government gives to the institutions. We [my wife and I] feel there is quite a lot of work that needs to be done in making sure that there are new buildings, and for faculty members, for scholarships.

Q: Do you want to discuss where you see Infosys going in the next five years? A: I would be very happy if the company becomes globally respected. It's very highly respected in India today. In January, when there was a survey among 1,600-plus general managers of all industries asking them to vote their most admired company, they voted for Infosys among 7,500 listed companies, plus an equal or higher number of unlisted companies. I think in India we have been fairly successful in gaining respect and our reputation. But the real challenge is to get respect and reputation in a market like this [the U.S.] with a lot of smart companies, a lot of role models, a lot of high performers. Secondly, we obviously want to provide best services to our customers, so we have to enhance our knowledge and make sure we provide core solutions. Thirdly, in our mission statement is employing best practices, to attract good talent...[and] to make the company more multicultural. Obviously, our objective is to create an environment where people of different nationalities come together and work in an environment of intense competition but mutual respect, to add greater and greater value to our customers. Q: What are you doing to achieve this? A: I believe in synergizing the organizational objectives and individual aspirations. The organizational objectives are in some senses nonnegotiable. The company has to grow. Having done that, how do we make sure individuals are enthusiastic about that? Some people may want better compensation. Some people may want more recognition. Some people may want more free time to learn new things, etcetera. We try to see how the organizational objectives are maintained while the individual aspirations are being met. Most of it has happened in India. Now our challenge is to bring it outside of India. Q: This is a pretty competitive job culture here, and you have to meet the demands of the market. How do you do that? A: We have an options plan. In fact, when we went public, one of the major reasons was to create an option plan. The stock doing well has been a double-edged sword. People who have been given options are very happy, but what about new options that you want to give people? At what seems high levels, how do you make sure people have capital appreciation? We were the first ones to [introduce share options in India] in a formal way on a reasonable scale. Many, many companies are following now. We got the Exchange Board of India to come out with a new legal framework, modeled on the U.S., last year.... My view is that God is still not finished with Infosys, and we are in the initial stages. Q: How likely is it that the IT revolution in India can really have an impact economically? A: I'm a heretic in many, many ways. For example, I'm the only corporate leader in India, who says companies who make export profits must pay taxes. I've become absolutely unpopular. So even here, I say technology has as much relevance to the poor as it has to the rich. I'll tell you why I say that: A couple of months ago, I was coming out of my office and one of the attendants, one of the people who bring coffee and tea and clean tables, he was coming out, and he was smiling. He was very happy. I said, "What, man, why are you so happy? What has happened?"

He said, "I got this urgent call from my village, I have to go back and go to see my father, somebody is not well." I said, "This couldn't make you happy." He said, "No, I could get money. I went to the ATM and got money." I said, "That's no big deal." He explained, "When I go to a bank counter, first of all I am not dressed suitably, and the counter clerk does not show as much interest in serving me. Second, if I go to the counter at 3:55 because they close at 4:00, they don't serve me because they want to close up and go. "On the other hand, this machine is a great leveler. I stand in the queue. It doesn't matter whether it's me or the Chairman. We all stand in the queue. We put in our cards. We get the money." In some senses, technology is a great leveler. Secondly, if technology is to reduce costs, if technology is to improve productivity, who needs these things more than the poor? So I've been having a big battle with my government, saying we need technology much more than anybody else. The poor need technology! In Bombay, 50% of the taxi drivers are from the villages. They come to the city, they are away from their families, they get to go back once in six months. So we said, "Let's conduct an experiment: Take a taxi driver in Bombay, and use Internet technology to keep them in touch." I personally believe technology has tremendous impact on the Indian economy. Q: Is the government becoming more cooperative? A: I think the history of 200 years can't be wiped out in a hurry. I find that the mindset of bureaucracy in India is changing, but is still one of maximization of revenue for the government and is against any scheme that, in the short term, will reduce revenue for the government. So I think that's a big issue in India.