Opinion The insiders at Infosys

It is only since last week,when Infosys board member and human resources chief T.V. Mohandas Pai resigned in a sulk,that Infosys’ brand of nepotism — substituting the idea of a blood inheritance with a seemingly abstract but equally expectation-ridden idea of co-founders — is widely being called to public question.

Why would a company,whose bar on every other corporate and social yardstick has been exceptional,not want to reward Pai’s 17-year record with a top-level position? Only because he wasn’t amongst the seven founders? The CEO’s title is expected to go through yet another founder-to-founder pass,from the quiet ‘Kris’ Gopalakrishnan to the last of the founders in contention for the title,the rather bland S.D. Shibulal. And when chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy’s term as chairman ends a few months from now,the lead contender for that position is,surprise,surprise,Kris Gopalakrishnan.

For many years Pai,a trained chartered accountant,was known to Infy insiders as a Murthy protégé. Pai,a magnetic and outspoken personality,gradually came into his own. He successfully headed two challenging portfolios at Infosys — first finance,and then human resources.

Quietly,Pai also became that man who executed Infosys’ and Murthy’s version of Las Vegas in Bangalore,a shimmering campus where a replica of Sydney’s Opera House jostled with a copy of an Egyptian Pyramid. He built Infosys’ training campus,the largest such corporate training ground in the world.

In the meantime,Pai was also the key figure in Infosys amassing vast real estate swathes across the country whose market value,and not merely book worth,would make investors’ heads spin — in a good way. Following Nandan Nilekani’s exit in 2009 to head the government’s UID program,the bearded,garrulous Pai increasingly became the public face of Infosys,alongside Murthy. It helped that he had an opinion on everything — from corruption in India to the state of Bangalore’s infrastructure.

Given all this,it was widely believed that Pai would be a frontrunner for the chief operating officer’s job at Infosys,the one that Shibulal would vacate on his impending elevation. And that would have been the firm’s first appointment outside of the founders,the one that could solely be attributed to merit. But it was not to be. When an insider of 17 years,that too in charge of human resources,criticises a company’s succession process as being opaque and conservative,it is time for the world to take notice.

Looking back,30 years have passed since Infosys was founded by Murthy and six others and started growing out of a small building in Bangalore’s Koramangala neighborhood. The founders came from ordinary backgrounds — born of a teacher,a plumbing contractor,a textile mill employee and so on. In a sense,they were outsiders to the elite system. But providentially,their belief in Indian talent and their assumption that technology services could be delivered remotely led to making Infosys one of the country’s most successful brands not only for the Indian,but for the global market.

Every legendary company has a powerful,impactful and simple purpose around which it is built. In the case of Infosys,it was to “create and share wealth with employees”,a radical idea for India three decades ago. Come to think of it,sharing wealth with employees is a drastic premise for many of the country’s current-day family-run businesses and companies,too. It was Infosys and its founder chairman Narayana Murthy who first articulated the maxim “employee is king” in the Indian context,by suggesting that Infosys’ net assets walked out the door every evening.

In doing so,Infosys and other technology services outsourcing companies created a trickle-down,an effect where employment in the company was garnered purely on education and skill,and not on class or strata. The culture was open and transparent,and,until the recent Pai fracas,largely politics-free.

The Infy success story was inspiring enough for many entrepreneurs to follow,creating a momentum that spawned the growth of a whole new social class. Infosys created a skilled global employee class not just in Bangalore but in all of urban India.

As they say,history happens not just inside government buildings and political meetings but also in the actions and beliefs of ordinary people. Today,everybody is looking to Infosys. In a company set up by professionals and held to exemplary standards,can succession be guaranteed only through a founder bloodline? Maybe this will be the time when Infosys comes of age — by not letting the personal ambitions of the founders come in the way of enterprise. And by not letting the line of founders become an inexhaustible leadership chain. In the best companies of the world,the founders build a company,choose the best person to lead it and depart a little before time.

saritha.rai@expressindia.com