N.R. Narayana Murthy is the legendary cofounder and retired chairman of Indian tech giant Infosys, in which he continues to hold a minority stake.
Murthy stepped down as chairman in 2011 after 30 years with the company but returned in 2013 to hand over management to a professional CEO in 2014.
In 2017, Murthy was in the news for raising concerns over alleged corporate governance lapses at Infosys, which the company denied.
The controversy led to the CEO's resignation and a board shakeup, which saw the return of retired cofounder Nandan Nilekani as nonexecutive chairman.
Murthy triggered a nationwide debate in 2023 when he suggested in a podcast that for India's productivity to improve, young Indians should work 70 hours a week.
Murthy's son-in-law Rishi Sunak, a member of the Conservative party in the U.K and a former Chancellor, was Prime Minister until 2024.
His Harvard-educated son Rohan donated $5.2 million to Harvard University Press to set up the Murty Classical Library, a collection of ancient Indian texts.
His son Rohan has cofounded his own enterprise software firm called Soroco.
In March 2024, Murthy gifted Infosys shares worth nearly $30 million to his four-month-old grandson.
In Their Own Words
Bad news must take the elevator and good news can take the stairs.
Indiaβs second largest IT services firm, Infosys, lost yet another key executive this week without a reasonable explanation, the latest in a parade of high-level departures in recent months. Infosys stock slid 7.5% on the news when markets opened on Thursday morning. The executive, B.G. Srinivas, is an Infosys board member [...]
Humble beginnings, stellar character, pioneering leadership, unequivocal simplicity, crème de la crème philanthropy, audacious change agent, business smarts, focused audacity, simple living and marginalized by self-tamed controversies. That makes for an impressive profile. One Entrepreneur possesses all these and much more.
Infosys was long defined by the charisma and values of its iconic founder-chairman, N.R. Narayana Murthy. With his innings coming to an end, the company begins its quest for longevity in an era of change.
Banker Kundapur Vaman Kamath, 63, was recently named chairman of Infosys Technologies, the $6 billion (revenues) Indian software services giant in Bangalore. He will be the first non-founder to occupy that position, albeit in a non-executive role, after N.R. Narayana Murthy, the companyβs iconic billionaire founder steps down in August. [...]
N.R. Narayana Murthy's successor will have to be a bold risk-taker, open to radically new ideas. And some voices on the board think K.V. Kamath is the man for the job.
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