Murthy watches 'changing seasons'

The convention centre at the Infosys headquarters in Electronics City was jam-packed and the atmosphere emotionally charged. But the man at the centre of all attention, N R Narayana Murthy, was sitting calmly with his family members, watching a dance programme themed ‘changing seasons’. Quite appropriately so, considering Infosys on Friday went through one of the biggest transitions in its three-decade history — the software services giant was bidding farewell to its illustrious founder, chief mentor and chairman a day in advance. Saturday, when Murthy will turn 65, is not a working day for the company.

His wife Sudha Murthy was happy. “He had no time for family all these years. The day he started the company, I realised I should loan him to Infosys. He dreamt, slept and ate Infosys. If you do his blood analysis, you won’t find haemoglobin — it will only be Infosys,” she said, as son Rohan, daughter Akshata and daughter-in-law Lakshmi nodded in approval.

Murthy’s extended family was also in full attendance — former and current Infoscions, co-founders and their family members, and teachers and other acquaintances. The only familiar face missing among the co-founders was Nandan Nilekani, who is now spearheading the UIDAI project. His wife Rohini was there. The last time Infosys gave such a rousing farewell to a co-founder, it was Nilekani’s.

Murthy’s speech was more like a management lesson for the current leaders of Infosys; he spoke about productivity, leadership issues, talent management, time management and quality.

“When I thought of Infosys on December 29, 1980, I frankly had no clue that I would one day bid goodbye to an Infosys of this size and this proportion. We have grown pretty well over the past 30 years in terms of the number of customers, markets that we are operating, services that we offer, revenues and number of employees,” said Murthy, dressed in an Infosys T-shirt. He had a word of caution for future leaders and said he would no more be able to guide them.

“This journey you would embark upon will be a longer one. As you become more and more critical leaders, you must understand that it requires lots of sacrifice, hard work, commitment, dedication, discipline. And it is all about deferred gratification. Earning the trust of every Infoscion is key to success,” he said.

He has obviously walked the walk — the reason why Infosys was able to move from a nondescript office in Pune to multiple campuses across the world and from seven co-founders to over 130,000 employees.

The company obviously remembers all that with gratitude: Infosys employees presented Murthy and his family members a sketch of his on a rice grain, done by Manjunath, a fellow Infoscion. Non-executive chairman-designate K V Kamath and executive co-chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan presented him a blazer emblazoned with ‘chairman emeritus’.

Prominent among others who attended the event were T V Mohan Das Pai and his wife, K Dinesh, N S Raghavan, Gururaj Deshpande and Ravi Venkatesan. In a recorded video message, Microsoft founder Bill Gates conveyed his wishes to Murthy for “building a world-class company which has incredible talents”.