Infosys co-founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani was honoured with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement award at the BT Best CEO Awards, and was felicitated by Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, and India Today Group Chairman Aroon Purie
Nandan Nilekani, a graduate from IIT Bombay, co-founded Infosys in 1981, and went on to play a key role in ushering in the IT revolution, putting India on the global IT map. His body of work became the foundation for Digital India
Fresh out of IIT, Nilekani joined Patni in 1979. Later, he was called by Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy asking him to join Infosys as a co-founder. Nilekani was hired as a software engineer trainee when Infosys was founded
According to NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani's contribution to Infosys was 'seminal'. "Nandan's memory is prodigious and his Rolodex is inexhaustible. These attributes are important for a successful sales leader," Murthy told Business Today Magazine
In 1993, Nanadan Nilekani was assigned a board-level responsibility at Infosys for sales and marketing. In 2002, at the age of just 46, Nilekani took over as Infosys CEO and the company grew by a CAGR of 38% during his 5-year tenure
Nandan Nilekani told BT that the biggest risk to his longevity is irrelevance. "It is important to be in touch with what is happening... I am constantly excited about the possibilities. There is always a gap between reality and potential, and I have the urge to bridge that gap," said Nilekani
In 2006, Nandan Nilekani received the Padma Bhushan Award, and a year later, he stepped down as Infosys CEO to make way for Kris Gopalakrishnan. He took charge as Co-chairman of the Board of Directors
In 2009, Nandan Nilekani left Infosys to head the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). He was given the task of rolling out a multipurpose national identity card. Today, Aadhaar, the unique ID, is an integral part of an average Indian's life
According to NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani's success in completing the Aadhaar project on time and within the budget is very significant. He said, "It is a good indicator of his leadership and project management abilities even in the government."
In 2014, Nandan Nilekani contested the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket and lost. He describes it as his biggest failure. "I had been successful at Infosys, later with the government. There was a sense of invincibility in me and this defeat brought me back to earth," he told BT
Taking a lesson from the defeat, Nandan Nilekani noted that his value-add is in being a change agent, and leveraging what he knows well. He said, "That came down to technological transformation and I will continue to double down on that. I am a plumber and I fix things.”
His talent for fixing things became even more evident when he rejoined Infosys in 2017 after Vishal Sikka fell out with Infosys founders. "We managed to create an organisation with robust energy. Today, we are well-placed and the board is solidly behind us," Nandan Nilekani told Business Today
According to Nandan Nilekani, the next 10 years will be India's golden era. He said, "I clearly see the emergence of three or four big ideas, among which are ONDC, unbundling commerce, the account aggregator and the democratisation of credit, a revolution in logistics, and AI being a big story.”