N.
R. Narayana Murthy
The
life and achievements
of
Mr. Narayan Murthy are fine examples to be followed. He has proved that
hard
work and intelligence put together, take one to any heights. It is said
that
all men are equal but Mr. Narayana Murthy has a different view. He says
that
each man is different from the other. Each person is talented in his
own ways.
What he needs are tapping his right potential.
Nagavara Rama Rao Narayana
Murthy is the full name of Mr. Narayana Murthy. He was born on August
20, 1946
in Karnataka. His father was a teacher. After schooling in his native
place, he
took Engineering degree in Electrical Science from the University of
Mysore in
1967, and then took degree in Master of Technology in Computer Science
from the
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1969.
After
this, he took up a
job in
SESA in Paris. He worked with a team to design a real time operating
system for
handling air cargo for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. He proved
his
capability there as an intelligent engineer. He worked in SESA for
three-and-a-half years. Then he decided to come back to India. He did
not take
a direct flight to India from Paris. He had only 450 dollars in his
pocket and
he hitchhiked his way to Mysore. He recalls that it was a great
learning
experience with many adventures.
After
his return to India,
he
joined the Patni Computer Systems in Pune. There he met a lady engineer
Ms. Sudha,
who later became his wife. D.A. Prasanna, who is now the Managing
Director and
CEO of Wipro G.E. a computer concern, was his close friend there. Mr.
Narayana
Murthy started his company 'Infosys' with six others in 1981. The
company did
not fare well in the beginning and its annual turnover remained at Rs.
50
crores. His meticulous planning and able execution of the schemes made
the
company grow in leaps and bounds. Profits of the company started
soaring and
reached 293.52 million. The company's income, generated outside India
rose from
Rs. 50 to 90 crores.
Today,
the net worth of
Infosys
is several billions. Apart from providing employment to thousands of
engineers
and others, Infosys earns considerable amount of valuable foreign
exchange.
Indeed, it was he who topped India to the World's IT map. Infosys is
the
biggest Information Technology Empire in India. Now Mr.Murthy is the
Chairman
of the Board and Chief Mentor officer of Infosys.
Infosys
Technologies
became the
first India-registered company to be listed in the American Stock
Exchange
(NASDAQ: INFY). He has been the president of National Association of
Software and
Service Companies (NASSCOM) from 1992-94. Mr. Narayana Murthy is a
member
of the National Information Technology Task Force of India. Now he is
also a
Director, Board of the Reserve Bank of India.
The
awards bagged by him
and
the honours conferred on him are innumerable. In 2000-2001 he was
awarded the
Business Baron of the Year award. He was given the Max Schmidheiny
Award in
2001. In June 2000 he was listed as one of the Asia's most powerful
people in
Asia Week power. In the Year 1999, he was named as one of the top
entrepreneurs
of the year in the Business Week. In the same year he was selected as
the
Businessman of the Year of 1999 by the Business India.
It is
the Indian Corporate
World's most coveted award. In 1996-97 he was awarded the JRD Tata
Corporate
leadership award. The Business Week chose him as one of the stars of
Asia for
three years i.e. 1998, 1999 and 2000. In 1998, he was conferred the
distinguished 'Alumni Award' by the Indian Institute of Technology,
Kanpur. At
the international level also he is recognized as a great person. He is
a member
of the Asia Society's International Council and also a member of the
Board of
Councillors of the University Of Southern California School Of
Engineering. Now
he is a member of the Wharton Business School's Asian executive board.
His
personal life is very inspiring, interesting
and educative. The most important is simplicity. Mr. Narayana Murthy
has
brought up his two children in a very diligent way and they also have
picked up
the simplicity from their parents. It is worth to quote an incident to
highlight the humanitarian nature of Mr. Murthy: One of the co-founders
of
Infosys, Dinesh, had gone to U.S.A. on business. In India his father
suddenly
became very ill and Dinesh was extremely worried about his father's
health.
Only phone calls were received and he felt that his physical presence
would
give solace to his father. When Mr. Murthy came to know about this, he
immediately took a flight to U.S. and sent Dinesh back to India to be
with his
father.