1. Chandrasekaran is popularly known as 'Chandra', while his friends call him 'Chandru'. His story has the familiar 'filmi' trappings of a small-town guy making it big - from a village called Mohanur in Tamil Nadu where he grew up, to his current sea-facing apartment, Sagar Darshan, in the country's business capital. Chandrasekaran loves his daily run and often talks about it. His family has a history of diabetes. Chandrasekaran started running in 2007 to improve his fitness level. He also runs in marathons. Chandra was not very athletic in college days, though he had played some cricket, batting a bit, bowling a bit, in school. 2. Chandra was born in an agricultural family and had five siblings. His father, Srinivasan Natarajan, was a lawyer by profession but also managed the family farm that grew bananas, rice and sugarcane. Even Chandra tried farming for six months before realising it was not his cup of tea. One of Chandrasekaran's early influences was his father, who wanted him to document every rupee he spent. He learnt lessons in frugality, honesty and perseverance from his father.3. He studied in a Tamil-medium government school and switched to English-medium for the senior secondary exams. He graduated from the Coimbatore Institute of Technology with a degree in applied sciences and completed his postgraduate degree in computer applications from Regional Engineering College, Tiruchirappalli.ALSO READ: TCS chief N Chandrasekaran appointed new Tata Sons chairman
4. Chandra never attended any management school. Nor does he read much management literature. His lessons in running a company have come from real-life experiences. Of course, he benefited immensely from the platform he inherited from S. Ramadorai, his predecessor. A strong delivery mindset was already part of the company's DNA when he took over as TCS CEO.5. Chandra has a phenomenal capacity for remembering people - some executives claim he knows at least 5,000 of them by their names. Corridor conversations with him can revolve around not only the executives themselves but also their families. The personal touch allows the CEO to remain connected with employees. While remembering so many names appears superhuman, research from Kansas State University last year said it was not brain power alone that determined a person's ability to remember names. It was his level of interest in people and the desire to understand them that mattered.6. Chandra has a soft side. He once flew back from the US to attend to his dog Ray, a Beagle, who had cancer. Ray died in 2014 at age seven, after struggling with the disease for many months.7. Since Chandrasekaran took over as CEO in October 2009, TCS's consolidated revenue skyrocketed to over Rs 1 lakh crore in the previous financial year from about Rs 30,000 crore in 2009/10. The profits rose to Rs 24,000 crore from Rs 7,000 crore, thanks to reengineering of its business units like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and retail, broadening of geographies including in North America and Europe, and acquisition and retention of top-notch talent.8. Under 'Chandra', in May 2012, the IT services giant had first surpassed petroleum refining major Reliance Industries (RIL) in market valuation. For the next seven to eight months, both the companies moved neck and neck. TCS took off from there and continued widening the gap.