Founders make way for new entrants

Infosys, the company founded by seven people in 1981, led by its present Chairman and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy, is going to don a fresh look after August this year. That is when Murthy turns 65 and leaves the company he calls his child.

That will leave only two of the co-founders, CEO S Gopalakrishnan and COO S D Shibulal.

The latest co-founder to leave is K Dinesh, who had left a government job in Karnataka to join Murthy at Patni Computer Systems, where all the co-founders met and decided to start their entrepreneurial journey with Infosys. For Dinesh, who has resigned from the board and the company, it was the end of a learning processwhich had started three decades ago. He has seen the company grow click-by-click with all its ups and downs.

“In the initial days, I shared a house with Kris in the US. All our effort was to put the company on the global map in whatever small way we could,” recalled Dinesh.

Among the co-founders, Ashok Arora was the first to leave in 1989. He sold his entire stake for Rs 25 lakh. An alumni of IIT-Bombay, Arora, according to Murthy, was one of the best programmers he had come across. The second to quit was N S Raghavan. He left in 2000 to promote his vision of entrepreneurship. Now, he supports budding entrepreneurs either through NSRCEL or through Ojas Venture Capital, the venture arm of his holding company Nadathur Holdings. In 2009, Nandan Nilekani resigned to head the government agency Unique Identification Authority of India.

“Murthy picked up a team of his choice, which was instrumental in tiding over the difficulties in the early stages of the company. That is why all the co-founders left on a happy note,” said a person close to Murthy.

The exit of T V Mohandas Pai, board member and head of human resources, administration, education and research, is different. He was looked upon as the one who would be the first to be the CEO outside the group of the co-founders.

From the beginning, all Infosys co-founders, including Murthy, have created space for other co-founders. When Murthy quit as the chief executive officer and managing director in March 2002, the post was offered to S Gopalakrishnan, who declined in Nilekani’s favour. It is understood that Gopalakrishnan is now set to relinquish his current position as CEO in favour of S D Shibulal, who would be the last of the co-founders to occupy the top post.

In August, board member and independent director Marti G Subrahmanyam will also retire. With the exit of Pai, Infosys is left with 12 board members, with Ravi Venkatesan, former Microsoft India chairman, as the latest addition. The Infosys board can go up to 16 members.