Founder’s Fury
N.R. NARAYANA MURTHY, 71
The self-declared moral custodian of Infosys refused to allow his company to become a victim of corporate misgovernance, calling into question his own appointment and the board of directors’ management
When N.R. Narayana Murthy stepped down as the chairman of Infosys in June 2014, he seemed to be leaving the IT giant he co-founded for good. After all, he had come back from retirement to lead the company through a tumultuous period for about a year, in what was his second stint at the helm. He was also passing on the baton to Vishal Sikka, 50, a former SAP executive, credited with transforming the German company’s innovation globally. But that was not to be. Murthy, fabled for having floated his firm on a Rs 10,000 loan from wife Sudha Murthy in 1981, began to flag issues that he believed were departures from the company’s corporate governance principles—Sikka’s allegedly flamboyant lifestyle, including his use of corporate jets, and a salary of $11 million that was 2,000 times the entry level pay at Infosys; a deal to acquire Israeli firm Panaya, where Infosys was accused of paying way over its value; and the alleged pay-off to former finance head Rajiv Bansal to buy his silence over the Panaya deal.
Murthy, who himself had been under fire from corporate governance watchdogs when he had brought along his son Rohan Murty as an executive assistant during his second stint at Infosys, took strong objection to the events at Infosys and pressured the company’s board to come clean. But the board maintained that Sikka had done no wrong and cited clean chits by reputed law firms in its defence. Murthy kept up his attack, using his moral influence over the company to build public opinion against Sikka and the Infosys board, that eventually led to Sikka’s resignation in August 2017. Stepping out of the shadows this time was another co-founder, Nandan Nilekani, 62, to lead Infosys as chairman, a decade after he had stepped down as CEO. But Murthy still proved he’s quite difficult to please. “Sadly, it appears we will no longer know the truth,” was what he had to say after the board, under Nilekani, concluded there was no wrongdoing under Sikka. But, of late, Murthy wants to avoid controversies—reflected in his thumbs-up to the appointment of new Infosys CEO Salil S. Parekh.