N. R. Narayana Murthy

Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy was born on August 20, 1946, in Sidlaghatta, a small town in Karnataka. He earned his electrical engineering degree from the University of Mysore and a master's in technology from IIT Kanpur. Before founding Infosys, Murthy worked as chief systems programmer at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and then at Patni Computer Systems in Pune, where he gained direct experience in software services delivery for overseas clients. His earlier attempt at entrepreneurship, a company called Softronics, had failed within a year, teaching him lessons about capital discipline and market timing. Murthy's political views also shaped his business philosophy: a brief period working in France in the early 1970s exposed him to socialist ideas, but witnessing their practical failures convinced him that compassionate capitalism, creating wealth through ethical enterprise, was the better path for India. This conviction became the cultural foundation of Infosys.

Infosys possesses arguably the most ethical, well-known founding story in modern Indian corporate history, defining the 'middle-class' technology miracle of Bangalore and famously prioritizing rigorous corporate governance in a heavily corrupt regulatory era. The company was founded in 1981 by N.R. Narayana Murthy and six other effective software engineers (including Nandan Nilekani, who would later build India's biometric ID system, Aadhaar). The foundational origins are humble; Murthy famously borrowed ₹10,000 (roughly $250) from his supportive wife, Sudha Murty, to provide the foundational seed capital for the company. They started Infosys in a tiny apartment in Pune (later moving to Bangalore) with a foundational obsession with ethical business practices. At the time, doing business in India (the 'License Raj') often required bribes and corrupt political connections. Murthy instituted a rigorous, refusal to pay bribes, famously suffering delays in importing computers simply to maintain the company's integrity. Their key move was pioneering the Global Delivery Model, convincing skeptical American clients that complex software could be written efficiently halfway across the world. When Infosys became the very first Indian company to list on the US NASDAQ exchange in 1999, it legitimized the Indian IT sector globally. Furthermore, by famously instituting Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), Murthy and the founders generated wealth not just for themselves, but for thousands of ordinary Indian engineers, transforming Infosys from a scrappy startup into the foundational bedrock of the Indian middle-class tech boom.

Education: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. N. R. Narayana Murthy was born in 1946.