Narayana Murthy

Narayana Murthy was born in 1946 in Karnataka, India, the son of a schoolteacher, and studied engineering with the help of scholarships his family could not otherwise have afforded. After early jobs in France and India, he started a company that manufactured and sold electronic components, which failed within a couple of years, leaving him with debts and a lesson in how quickly good intentions collapse without discipline and cash.

In 1981 he and six colleagues founded Infosys, a software services company, in a small rented flat in Pune, with a total starting capital of about ten thousand rupees, most of it lent by his wife Sudha from her own modest savings. India at the time had almost no domestic computer industry and strict import controls that made basic equipment hard to obtain, and the founders spent years travelling abroad chasing small contracts to keep the firm afloat.

Infosys grew slowly through the 1980s before India's economic liberalisation in the 1990s opened the door to faster expansion, and the company became one of the first Indian firms to list on an American stock exchange. Murthy insisted from the beginning on transparent accounting, broad employee stock ownership, and a culture that valued long-term client trust over short-term deals, an approach that shaped how many later Indian technology firms operated.

He stepped down as chief executive in 2002 and later returned briefly during a difficult period for the company, remaining known for a personally frugal lifestyle despite his wealth and for arguing that ethics in business was a practical asset, not an indulgence.