Padma Vibhushan N R Narayana Murthy
Read this article about Sri N R Narayana Murthy, Padma Vibhushan a world leader in entrepreneurship. Born in Mysore is the proud son of Karnataka who rose to command respect from the world over. Even after reaching he is a down to earth person. He co-founded the international software giant Infosys along with other 6 likeminded middle class friends.
Birth and education of Narayana Murthy
Narayana Murty (Nagavara Ramaraya Narayana Murthi) was born on August 20, 1946 in a Kannada Madhwa Brahmin family in Mysore, Karnataka State. Mr Murthy graduated in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Engineering of the Mysore University in 1967. Thereafter went to IIT Kanpur and completed Master's degree course in 1969. Narayana Murthy is the 5th of 8 children of a modest school teacher in Mysore.
Narayana Murthy's Jobs
After completion of studies Narayana Murthy joined the I I M Ahmedabad. He was the chief systems programmer there. For the ECIL (Electronics Corporation of India Limited) Mr Murthy designed and implemented BASIC interpreter. BASIC means Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code is high level programming language prepared for easy handling the concerned programs. In 1976 he started a company by name Softronics. That company did not succeed. So he went to Pune and joined M/s Patni Computer systems. Co-Founding of Infosys
After joining M/s Patni Computer systems Mr Narayana Murthi settled down in Pune. In 1981 he co-founded the Infosys with Nandan Nilekani and 5 others at Pune. His share of the investment was Rs 10,000/- at that time. He was the CEO of Infosys for 21 years. In 2002 Nilekani succeeded Mr Murthy. In Infosys Mr Murthy developed, designed and implemented the Global Delivery Model. Global delivery model means executing orders or services by a team at various locations. That is to implement similar programs at various locations by a team. This was the base for extra ordinary success in IT industry for outsourcing from India. He helped the company take various key decisions including the listing of Infosys in the Indian stock exchange and on the NASDAQ. From 2002 to 2006 he was the chairman of the board and chief mentor of Infosys. In August 2011 about 2 months back he took retirement from the company and accepted the title Chairman Emeritus.
It is the vision of Narayana Murthy to see the opportunity in software. The luck was also with him to get a right team of 6 others co-founders, all from middle class families without any business background. They all worked together under the stewardship of Mr N R N to make the Infosys to the stature of today.
Side by side his association with Infosys Narayana Murthi has served as independent director of HSBC, DBS Bank, Unilever and NDTV. He has also served on the boards of Ford Foundation, UN Foundation, Indo British Partnership and Chairman of the Governing board of Public Health Foundation of India. He is member of the Councils and advisory Boards of Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a Council of the Corporate Governance initiative at the Cornell University, Harward Business School and The Indian School of Business. He is in the committee of Academic affairs and alumni affairs and development at Yale University, the William F Achtmever Center for global Leadership in Tuck School Business and the University of Tokyo. He is also connected as member of Board of /Directors INSEAD, Asian Institute of Management Singapore Management University and several other institutions. Personal life of Narayana Murthy
While working in Patni computers, Pune met Miss Sudha Kulkarni an engineer in TELCO, Pune (Tata Motors) and he married her and she became Sudha Murthy. Ms Sudha Murthy is an author, philanthropist and a social worker. Her sister Jayashree Despande is the wife of Gururaj Despande, the founder of USA based Sycamore Networks. The Murthys have a son Rohan and a daughter Akshata. Akshata is married to Rishi Sunak and Rohan is married Lakshmi Venu, daughter of Venu Srinivasan of TVS Motors. Mr Murthy is uncle of Jerry Rao former Chairman of NASSCOM and Chief of MphasiS.Honours and awards for Mr Murthy
1996 JRD Corporate Leadership Award All India Management Association (AIMA)
1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award I I T, Kanpur
2000 Padma Shri President of India
2001 Nikkei Asia Prize Nikkei Inc.
2001 Max Schmidheiny Liberty Prize Switzerland
2001 Wharton Business School Dean's Medal University of Pennsylvania
2003 World Entrepreneur of the Year Ernst and Young
2003 Asia's Businessmen of the Year Indo-French Forum
2007 Commander of the Order of British Empire Government of U K
2008 Officer of the Legion of Honor Government of France
2008 Padma Vibhushan Government of India
2010 Foreign Associate Member U S National Academy of Engineering
2010 IEEE Honorary Membership Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
2011 Indian of the year & Icon of India NDTVOther credentials of Mr Narayana Murthy
In December, 2005 Mr Murthy was elected as the 7th most admired CEO in world by Burson Marsteller.
According to the Economist he is the 8th among top 15 world leaders in 2005.
Economic Times found him as the most powerful Indian CEO in Corporate Dossier for 2004 & 2005.
Time/CNN named Mr Murthy as one of 25 most influential global executive.
Business Week found one of top 9 entrepreneurs for 1999 and Star of Asia for 1998, 99 & 2000.
He was the President for 1992 to 1994 of National Association of Software and Service Companies, India.
He has served in several National and International institutions in various capacities and a separate article may be required to mention all those. Few of them are Central Board of R B I, Member, Prime Minister's council on Trade and Industry, Member- Asia Advisory Board of British Telecommunications and Chairman of committee on Corporate Governance of SEBI.
So many of the leading universities from all around the world has conferred doctorate degrees on him.
Hi Ramanathan,
Your Article has a lots to know about an IT world achiver, N R Narayana Murthy. KSR is wanting such kind of article which says our world not only about the Information Technology and also the Information about the Technologists.
Good to see the casual life picture of a founder of an IT Company. Thanks for bringing the un-seen casual life of an extraordinary personality to on-screen.