Meet Ravi Venkatesan, Infosys' new co-chairman

Infosys on Thursday appointed Independent Director Ravi Venkatesan as Co-chairman of its board. 

The appointment is being seen as a victory for Infosys founder N  R Narayana Murthy over company Chairman R Seshasayee.    

As reported earlier, Venkatesan has been among the key negotiators with Murthy after he raised concerns over governance issues at Infosys and sought that Seshasayee should be held accountable. 

Venkatesan is the non-executive Chairman of the Board at the Bank of Baroda. Along with serving on the board of Infosys as an independent director, he also serves on the boards of Rockefeller Foundation. Venkatesan has served on the boards of Harvard Business School, AB Volvo, Bunge, and Thermax.

At 53, Venkatesan counts IIT Bombay and Purdue University among his alma matter, and has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is also the author of an acclaimed book 'Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere' published by Harvard Business Review. 

Building Microsoft India

Venkatesan served as the chairman of Microsoft India between 2004 and 2011, during which time he helped build Microsoft India into Microsoft's second-largest presence in the world. He was also instrumental in creating and implementing Microsoft India's computer literacy programme, Project Shiksha, which has trained over 40 million school children in India. 

Prior to leading Microsoft India, Venkatesan was the chairman of Cummins India. He also helped establish India's first engineering college for women, the Cummins College of Engineering, in Pune. 

He is a recipient of the IIT Bombay's Distinguished Alumnus Award and Purdue University's Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award. He was voted as one of India's best management thinkers by Thinkers50. 

He is also the founder Chairman of Social Venture Partners India, a partner at Unitus Seed Fund and a fund advisor at Kalaari Capital.