Bangalore: Dr. N.R Narayana Murthy, mentor of Infosys Technologies Ltd., which has earned world fame under him in business and higher levels of life for thousands of his employees in the silicon valley of India is due to retire on Saturday after 3 decades of splendid work and achievement of new heights in technical fields as on April 30, 2011, tomorrow.
Although he started Infosys with barely 5 or 6 companions and small loans, he built a formidable empire better than any Public sector undertaking in Bangalore, and brought name to the state and city among nations. Yet, the time to say good-bye to all that had come when it is in safe hands and marching forward. In the early days, he even cut down his monthly salary to the minimum (10%) while raising other salaries (of his colleagues) by 20%.
A number of original founder-members have already left the expanding company which has over a lakh of employees and many crorepathis in shares. Nandana Nilekani, K.Dinesh, T.V Mohandas Pai are no longer in Infosys. Now NRN is moving out.
Infosys has an independent director in K.Vaman Kamath who retired from ICICI Bank an year ago. He could succeed NRN Murthy. CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan would be the vice-president as founder-member. Another founder Shibulal, would be the new CEO. Besides, anybody from outside this set up may gain a wild card entry, as in the case of Tata’s when Ratan retires.
According to Jeffrey Lehmann, who heads the Company’s administration selection committee, t is difficult to fill Dr. Murthy’s post. He (Murthy) heads the IIM-Ahmedabad now, which is no.1 among IIMs in the country. Kris is one name that comes to mind. Kris may even satisfy the share market.
Shibu Lal and Kris Gopalakrishnan have to jointly lend their shoulders to the task ahead in future, if Infosys should not slip from an eminent position it has now.