N. R. Narayana Murthy

Overview

Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, born on 20 August 1946 in Sidlaghatta in Karnataka, is the founder of Infosys and was its chairman, chief executive, president and chief mentor before retiring as chairman emeritus. He was chief executive from 1981 to 2002 and chairman from 2002 to 2011, returning as executive chairman in 2013 for a five year term.^[1]

He has been described by Time and CNBC as the father of the Indian information technology sector, for the part he played in building a model through which Indian firms deliver software services to clients abroad, and Fortune has listed him among the twelve greatest entrepreneurs of the time. In 2005 he co-chaired the World Economic Forum in Davos.^[1]

Milestones

1. 1946Born in Sidlaghatta, Karnataka, into a middle class Kannada speaking family.
2. 1967Graduates in electrical engineering from the National Institute of Engineering, Mysore.
3. 1969Completes a master's degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
4. 1970sWorks at IIM Ahmedabad on India's first time-sharing computer system and writes a BASIC interpreter; then joins Patni Computer Systems in Pune.His own software firm, Softronics, failed after about eighteen months.
5. 1974Detained near the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, an experience he says turned him from a leftist into a compassionate capitalist.^[1]
6. 1981Founds Infosys with six software professionals and ₹10,000, given by his wife Sudha Murty.^[1]
7. 1993Infosys lists in India; the firm's growth sets the template for the Indian software services industry.
8. 1999The company lists American depositary receipts on Nasdaq, the first Indian firm to do so.
9. 2002Hands over the chief executive role to Nandan Nilekani after twenty one years, and becomes chairman.
10. 2011Retires from the board as chairman emeritus.^[7]
11. 2013Returns as executive chairman for five years.^[1]
12. 2014His son Rohan Murty joins him at Infosys as executive assistant.^[2]
13. 2023A remark that young people should work seventy hours a week starts a national debate about work and hours.^[1]

Early career

Murthy's first jobs were in systems programming rather than business. At the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad he was chief systems programmer, working on India's first time-sharing computer system and writing a BASIC interpreter for the Electronics Corporation of India. He then started Softronics, which failed within about eighteen months, and joined Patni Computer Systems in Pune, where he met several of the people with whom he would found Infosys.^[1]

He has said that being detained and expelled without reason in 1974, while travelling near the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, removed his faith in the ideology he had held and replaced it with what he calls compassionate capitalism.^[1]

Building Infosys

Infosys was incorporated in 1981 with capital of about 250 dollars, most of it from Sudha Murty's savings. Murthy was chief executive for twenty one years and then chairman, and it is his name that is attached to the global delivery model: work defined and sold close to the client, executed at scale in India, and priced per project rather than per person.^[1]

The transition away from the founders was long and, in 2017, public. Murthy and the board disagreed about the direction set by the first outside chief executive, Vishal Sikka, and Murthy later told Mint that directors had come to feel Sikka was not chief executive material. Sikka resigned in August 2017.^[5]

Board work, awards and writing

Murthy has been an independent director on the corporate board of HSBC and a director of DBS Bank, Unilever, ICICI and NDTV, and he sits on advisory councils at universities and foundations including Cornell, INSEAD, the Ford Foundation and the Rhodes Trust. He chairs the governing board of the Public Health Foundation of India. He is a trustee of the Infosys Prize.^[1]

His honours include the Padma Shri and the Padma Vibhushan, the Hoover Medal for engineering in service to humanity in 2012, and the Chanchlani Global Indian Award in 2014. He has published three books, including A Better India, A Better World.^[1][3][4]

Public debate

In late 2023 Murthy said young people should work seventy hours a week to lift national productivity, a remark that set off months of argument in India. He did not retract it at the time, and in November 2024 said the comment was meant as introspection rather than instruction, adding that his own long hours had been a personal choice and that such hours should not be mandated. He later advocated the 996 pattern of nine to nine, six days a week, which drew a wider backlash, since the pattern was outlawed in China in 2021 and has documented costs to health.^[1]

Family

Murthy is married to Sudha Murty, an author, educator and the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, who was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in March 2024. Their son Rohan joined Infosys as his father's executive assistant in 2013 and left in 2014 to found Soroco; their daughter Akshata married Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2022 to 2024, which made Murthy the father-in-law of a British prime minister.^[1][2]

Management philosophy

Murthy's contribution to Indian business is a delivery model rather than a product. Work is scoped and sold close to the client, executed at scale in India, measured against schedules and quality metrics, and priced per project with a margin the vendor defends. He built Infosys on that, and the model became the template for an industry.^[1]

He writes and speaks about the conditions for that model in moral terms: honesty in accounts, a share of the wealth for employees, a long term view, and a company whose reputation is its most valuable asset. His account of turning from a leftist into a compassionate capitalist, after being detained at a border in 1974, is the anecdote he uses to explain why he considers the market and social obligation compatible rather than opposed.^[1]

Criticism

Two subjects follow him. The first is working hours: the seventy hour week remark of 2023 and his later advocacy of the 996 pattern drew a broad backlash from doctors, unions and employees, on the grounds that the evidence on overwork points to declining health and output, and that the pattern was outlawed in China in 2021. He has said since that his own long hours were a personal choice and should not be mandated.^[1]

The second is the 2017 dispute at Infosys, where he and the board disagreed publicly about the direction set by the first outside chief executive, a disagreement that ended with Vishal Sikka's resignation and a period of uncertainty about the company's strategy. Murthy's defenders argue a founder is entitled to defend the institution he built; his critics argue the public fight cost the company years.^[1][5]

Legacy

The clearest measure of Murthy's influence is not Infosys's revenue but the number of people who left it to build something else, and the fact that a company founded on ₹10,000 of borrowed household money became one of the largest employers of engineers in the country. He was named among the twelve greatest entrepreneurs of the time by Fortune, co-chaired the World Economic Forum in 2005, and is described as the father of the Indian IT sector by Time and CNBC.^[1]

His family is now part of the story too: his wife Sudha Murty sits in the Rajya Sabha, his son founded the software company Soroco after a year at Infosys, and his daughter Akshata's marriage to Rishi Sunak put the family's name inside 10 Downing Street from 2022 to 2024.^[1][2]