What makes Nandan uber-cool?
It was a nice, wintry Saturday morning in December 1990 that four of the seven founders sat down in the small Infosys office in a leafy, residential suburb in Bangalore. There was lot of excitement in the air with the possibility of selling our company for an unimagined sum of $1 million.
Having led an austere life with no cars and no houses, and having run the Infosys marathon for over nine years in the then business-unfriendly India, we had very little hope of seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Obviously, this likely offer was seen as a godsend. I let my younger colleagues talk about what we would do after we sold Infosys. One wanted to be a Deputy EDP Manager in a small enterprise; another wanted to do his PhD in mathematics; and it was Nandan’s turn to speak.
Nandan spoke in his usual confident-yet-understated style about his dream of joining Sam Pitroda in one of his eight missions and making the life of the common Indian better. He did not spend a minute about his future or the future of his family—his wonderful wife Rohini, and his charming children—Jahnavi and Nihar.
His eyes sparkled when he spoke about how he would use his knowledge of technology to create a better India. His high aspirations came out very clearly. In less than five minutes, Nandan demonstrated why he is a rare Indian of whom we can all be proud. He did fulfil his dream of working with Sam when Sam invited him to join as a member of the Knowledge Commission. I am glad that the time has come for him to make good on his dream of adding value to the country through his technology knowledge.
That was the day I realised that Nandan was destined for nobler stuff in life than just the next Maybach car or the next Beaujolais wine bottle. He is a clear thinker, a great conceptualiser and a wonderful articulator. There is none at Infosys to rival his extraordinary facility with English language. His memory is prodigious. He is a walking lexicon. His research on any topic is always deep. He can reel out data and facts in a jiffy from umpteen sources. His imagination knows no boundaries. No wonder, then, that his book Imagining India is clearly a best-seller and, in my opinion, the best book on contemporary India.
When I decided to start Infosys, I was clear that I wanted a pretty youngish team with me. In fact, other than N.S. Raghavan, who was three years older than me, the rest were all at least 10 years younger than me. They had less than two years of experience as software professionals at the time of founding of Infosys. Nandan was the third person that I spoke to, the first two being N.S. Raghavan and Kris Gopalakrishnan. He was brave and took a quick decision to come on board.
However, there was a minor problem. He was to get married in 10 days! It was not easy for him to break this news to his future parents-in-law. He very politely asked me if I could meet his uncle—Mr Divgi—just for a chat. I knew that Mr Divgi would be assessing me to assuage the concerns of Somans—Nandan’s parents-in-law. Sudha, my wife, and I met Mr Divgi for dinner at his house in Worli, had a long conversation on my vision, and how I wanted to go about it. In the end, Nandan got his clearance from his uncle and was on board.
Nandan is at his best when chairing meetings. After he took over from me as the CEO of Infosys, I have had the pleasure of watching him chair the internal board meetings. He listens to everybody and then synthesises the views of the participants in a simple, direct and economical manner. He is a great consensus builder. He rarely shows his emotions. He has a steely exterior. He can deliver the toughest messages with his usual aplomb.
But, at heart, he is a soft person. Nandan has always put the interest of Infosys ahead of his personal interest in every one of his transactions. In 2007, when I suggested to him that he may want to consider stepping down from the CEO position to make way for another illustrious son of Infosys—Kris Gopalakrishnan, it took him less than five minutes to wholeheartedly support that idea and act on it.
Any discussions on large dividends always elicit questions from Nandan whether the company will have enough cash for its future, postdividend. Since the day he gave up his CEO position, he has been meticulous about passing on every opportunity for public visibility onto Kris, his successor. He resigned from several important, global business platforms and recommended Kris as his replacement.
Nandan is clearly one of the brightest Infoscions. It was in February 1979, when I was the head of software at Patni Computer Systems (PCS) that the 23-year-old Nandan walked into my office with his freshly-minted degree from IIT, Bombay, and demanded that I recruit him. I have always believed in the learnability of young people rather than their experience.
I used to give tough puzzles to the recruitees to assess their intelligence. I gave him three tough puzzles and he solved all the three in record time for me to offer him a job right there. He even managed to get a higher salary threatening me that he might prefer a MBA degree in the US to a job at PCS!
He is a natural leader. When we founded Infosys, I sent my five colleagues to start a large project in the US, while Kris and I stayed back in India to complete our commitment to PCS and to create a steady-state domestic revenue stream for the company. When these people went to the US, it was not clear who would lead the project team. I felt that I should not designate a leader and the best man should take over. Within just 15 days of the project team arriving in Tampa, Florida, Nandan was chosen as the leader by the rest of the founders.
I remember the wonderful time we had together when we went on the IPO roadshow in 1993. His presentations were scintillating. His energy and enthusiasm even at the beginning of the 15th presentation of the day were what motivated me to bring out the best in me. He was always willing to chip in when I needed him to answer any questions. Mohandas Pai and I handled the US part while Nandan and Balakrishnan—our current CFO— handled the European and Asian part of the IPO roadshow on NASDAQ in 1999. Nandan did yet another fabulous job.
Nandan is a consummate networker. He is at his best schmoozing with people whether it is at Davos or at the Infosys customer meet. He brings his inexhaustible fund of knowledge in various fields to connect with CEOs from myriad industries and create linkages. My memory of faces is very poor and I have most often turned to him to help me remember the names of guests in large gatherings. He conducts the training programme for our sales people on networking. Leveraging Tom Friedman’s choice of the term Flat World for globalisation, he created a very successful marketing campaign for the company.
Nandan believes in upholding the respect and the dignity of fellow professionals even while taking tough decisions. He has utmost concern for physically- and mentally-challenged people. I have never seen him belittle anybody. He is WYSIWYG—what you see is what you get. He is always ethical in every transaction and plays it fair and transparent. There is never a discussion on any strategic issue at Infosys without Nandan. It is difficult to imagine an internal meeting without Nandan.
My wife has tremendous affection for Nandan and is very proud of his achievements. She is almost like the elder sister that Nandan never had. Her eyes light up when she talks about him, and holds him as one of the two wonders of Dharwad, the other being her brother, Srinivas, the most famous contemporary astronomer from India.
I thank God for the opportunity given to me to play a part in shaping Nandan’s career so far. I am glad that a chance conversation on my mobile phone with Nandan in February 2009 about a possible role for him to shape the future of the country has, indeed, propelled Nandan into a larger orbit to realise his dream of making this a better country for every Indian.
Nandan, we will all be cheering you and rooting for you as you start this wonderful, next marathon. While we are sorry to see you leave us, we know that the call of duty to the nation is always beyond any responsibility within Infosys. Best wishes for an even greater future.
N.R. Narayana Murthy, is the chief mentor of Infosys Technologies
