N. R. Narayana Murthy
Non-Executive Chairman and Chief Mentor
Infosys Technologies Ltd.
N. R. Narayana Murthy is the non-executive chairman and chief mentor of Infosys Technologies Ltd., a global information technology consulting and software services provider headquartered in Bangalore, India. He served as CEO of Infosys for 20 years until 2002. In 1999, Infosys was listed on NASDAQ (INFY). In March 2002, he handed over the reins of the company to fellow cofounder Nandon M. Nilekoni.
Mr. Murthy is the chairman of the governing body of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. He is a member of the board of overseers of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, a trustee of Cornell University and Singapore Management University, and a member of the board of advisors for the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College.
He received his BE Electrical in 1967 from the University of Mysore and his MTech in 1969 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Mr. Murthy serves as an independent director on the board of the DBS Bank, the largest government-owned bank in Singapore. He also serves as a director on the central board of the Reserve Bank of India. He is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry, the Asia Pacific Advisory Board of British Telecommunications plc, and the board of New Delhi Television Ltd. (NDTV), India. He is an information technology advisor to several Asian countries.
Mr. Murthy has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In 2004, Time named him one of the Global Tech Influentials. He was the first recipient of the Indo-French Forum Medal in 2003, in recognition of his role in promoting Indo-French ties. He was voted the 2003 World Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. He was one of the two people named as Asia's Businessmen of the Year for 2003 by Fortune magazine. In 2001, he was named by TIME/CNN as one of the twenty-five most influential global executives. He was awarded the Max Schmidheiny Liberty 2001 prize (Switzerland). In 1999, BusinessWeek named him one of the nine Entrepreneurs of the Year, and he was also featured in the BusinessWeek's The Stars of Asia in 1998, 1999 and 2000. He has been conferred with honorary doctorates by nine universities in India. In 1998, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, one of the premier institutes of higher learning in India, conferred on him the Distinguished Alumnus Award, and he was awarded the 1996-97 JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award.
