N. R. Narayana Murthy

Narayana Ramarao Narayana Murthy was born on August 20, 1946, in Shidlaghatta, Karnataka, India. He was raised in a Kannada-speaking middle-class Deshastha Madhva Brahmin family. Murthy completed his school education in his hometown before pursuing higher education in engineering. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the National Institute of Engineering in 1967. Subsequently, he earned a master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1969. In 2007, Lancaster University awarded him an honorary degree.

Murthy's early career included work as a research associate and chief systems programmer at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad). During his tenure there, he worked on India's first time-sharing computer system and designed a BASIC interpreter for Electronics Corporation of India Limited. He also established a company named Softronics, which did not succeed, leading him to join Patni Computer Systems in Pune, Maharashtra.

In 1974, Murthy was detained and expelled during the communist era near the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border, an event he later characterized as transforming his political outlook from a leftist/communist to a more pragmatic perspective.

In 1981, Murthy co-founded Infosys with six software professionals, investing Rs 10,000, a sum provided by his wife, Sudha Murty. He served as the company's CEO from 1981 to 2002 and as chairman from 2002 to 2011. Under his leadership, Infosys developed a global delivery model for IT services outsourcing from India. After stepping down as CEO, he became the chairman of Infosys and later the chief mentor. In August 2011, Murthy retired from the company, taking the title of chairman emeritus. He returned as executive chairman in June 2013 for a five-year term and stepped down from that position in June 2014, continuing as chairman emeritus.

Murthy has served as an independent director on the boards of several institutions, including HSBC, DBS Bank, Unilever, ICICI, and NDTV. He has been a member of advisory boards for academic and philanthropic organizations such as Cornell University, INSEAD, ESSEC, the Ford Foundation, the UN Foundation, the Indo-British Partnership, the Asian Institute of Management, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is also a trustee of the Infosys Prize and the Rhodes Trust, as well as the chairman of the governing board of the Public Health Foundation of India.

He has participated in global forums, notably co-chairing the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005. Murthy has received numerous honors, including the Padma Vibhushan and Padma Shri awards from the Government of India.

In 2010, Murthy invested in SKS Microfinance alongside venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. In 2016, he joined FXC as a board member. In 2017, he publicly raised concerns regarding corporate governance at Infosys, which the company denied. In late 2023, Murthy made headlines for a public statement suggesting that young Indians should work 70 hours per week to boost national productivity; he later clarified that this was a personal perspective, emphasizing individual choice. In 2024, he advocated for the 996 working hour system (from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, six days a week) in India, which drew criticism due to health concerns and the legality of such practices.

Murthy's wife, Sudha Murty, is an educator, author, and philanthropist, particularly associated with the Infosys Foundation. They have two children: Rohan, who served as an executive assistant at Infosys before founding Soroco in 2014, and Akshata, who married British-Indian politician Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2022 to 2024.

He is the author of several books, including "A Better India, A Better World" (2009), "The Wit and Wisdom of Narayana Murthy" (2016), and "A Clear Blue Sky" (2010).