Narayana N. R. Murthy

Biography

For more than 25 years, Narayana N. R. Murthy has helped reshape the global information and technology software and services industries through innovative business practices that have been adopted by many of the world’s top corporations.

In 1981, he founded Infosys with six friends and served as its chief executive for 20 years before retiring in March 2002. Mr. Murthy is credited with building Infosys into a multi-billion-dollar organization that helped facilitate the rapid growth of India’s IT industry. There, he initiated the Global Delivery Model (GDM), which helps to deliver rapid-time-to-market solutions and optimizes cost efficiencies. Infosys was the first Indian company to offer stock options to all its employees and the first to list on NASDAQ. He remains non-executive chairman and chief mentor for the company.

An independent director on the boards of some of the largest global institutions and an IT adviser to several Asian countries, Mr. Murthy actively promotes business and education issues and serves on several boards dedicated to fostering these topics. He also sits on the advisory board of several well-known universities. He has received numerous awards and honors and has been highly ranked by virtually every top global business publication, including being named as one of Time Magazine’s “Global Tech Influentials” in 2004 and one of its “Asian Heroes Who Have Brought About Revolutionary Changes” in 2006.

He has also been conferred honorary doctorates by well-known universities around the world. Mr. Murthy received a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the University of Mysore, India and a master’s in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur.