Kris Gopalakrishnan, non-executive Vice-Chairman and the last of the serving co-founders of Infosys, will retire on October 10, bringing down the curtains on a historic chapter at the IT major.
Gopalakrishnan, along with six others including NR Narayana Murthy, founded the IT bellwether in 1981 with a capital of $250 and shaped it into an $8-billion behemoth and India’s second-largest IT services company. After Nandan Nilekani resigned from the company in 2007, Gopalakrishnan was made CEO and MD.
In that role, he steered Infosys through some of its toughest times.
Gopalakrishnan was awarded the country’s third highest civilian honour, the Padma Bhushan, in 2011 for his contribution to the growth of the IT industry.
Gopalakrishnan, who holds a master’s degree from IIT-Madras, became the company’s Executive Vice-Chairman in 2013.
In an interview with BusinessLine a few years ago, he had said that one of the reasons for Infosys’ success was the smart work and teamwork of the management.
“Many companies started in 1981, but only some survived. We did a lot of smart work and teamwork.”
He also said that Infosys was still a young company. “If Infosys is a successful company 100 years from now, I think we can claim that it is a successful company,” he said.
Gopalakrishnan also headed the country’s top industry body, the Confederation of Indian Industry, in 2013-14.
A philanthropistAn active philanthropist, he recently donated $35 million to the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science to set up a centre for brain research and $1.8 million to Carnegie Mellon University to fund its research partnership with IISc.