In keeping with his low profile, NR Narayana Murthy’s last working day at Infosys, Friday, was crammed with meetings till late evening, allowing little time for the usual pomp of a handover.
BANGALORE: In keeping with his low profile, NR Narayana Murthy’s last working day at Infosys, Friday, was crammed with meetings till late evening, allowing little time for the usual pomp of a handover.
“I don’t believe in farewell functions or speeches,” Murthy, who turns 60 on Sunday, told DNA.
That Murthy is relinquishing power to abide by his company’s rules — it is mandatory at Infosys to retire at 60 — exemplifies the professionalism of the man and his company.
In his executive position, Murthy had an employee number, attended office daily, and was granted a monthly compensation.
“I would lose all of that. I won’t have an employee number. I will not have to come to office every day, and I won’t receive a salary,” Murthy said.
The software icon has a busy calendar despite stepping down from an active role in Infosys where he was at the helm for 25 years since he founded in 1982.
Murthy will be third, after Ashok Arora and NS Raghavan, of the seven founders to step down from Infosys.
The son of a mathematics teacher, he and six friends founded the company with just US$1,000 in startup capital. But they spotted early the potential in the software services industry, and Infosys has since grown into an outsourcing giant with revenues of US$2.15 billion. The Indian outsourcing industry Infosys helped create is now worth US$23 billion.
Murthy will continue to be the non-executive chairman and chief mentor of the software major, playing the role of an advisor. He will move from his imposing office at the Infosys campus to the modest 15-year-old building that is a heritage structure in the company.
“Maybe I will come once a month to the office in the heritage building in the campus,” he said. “I am still the chief mentor at Infosys and continue to guide the board.”
Murthy plans to travel nearly 20 days a month across the world. But he also wants to spend more time with his wife Sudha and children, Akshata and Rohan. “There is a lot to catch up with my wife and children,” he said. Akshata (26) has completed MBA at Stanford, and Rohan (22) is a PhD student at Harvard.
Murthy indicated that Infosys may not be the place for his children to spend their future. “My daughter and son would run their own marathon.”
Murthy’s vision for the future of Infosys continues to be ambitious. He wants his firm to be more multicultural and leaner even as it expands. “I suppose our biggest challenge is to retain the soul, the agility, and the camaraderie of a small organisation in the body of a large monolithic organisation.”
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