From corner room to Yojana Bhavan

26 Jun 2009

For a guy who joked, "I would have been building my second kitchen extension in New Jersey," if he hadn't joined hands with Narayana Murthy to start Infosys Technologies, getting every Indian a national identity card isn’t a bad place to end up in at all. That in between he launched Infosys, had a brilliant corporate career, made thousands of crores, helped the world understand globalisation better by telling Tom Friedman the world is flat, and penned a best seller Imaging India, himself, seem stepping stones in an improbable journey that has taken him from the corner room with a fantastic view to Yojana Bhawan.

In some ways, Nandan Manohar Nilekani is destinys child, a `karmayogi, to use his wife Rohini’s phrase. There have been serendipitous breaks, he’s always been at the right place at the right time. When most 22-year olds from IITs were busy taking GREs and flying off to Ivy league colleges, he sort of strolled into his mentor Murthys office at Patni Computers in Mumbai. His entrepreneurial journey would have been aborted if he hadn’t developed fever just before CAT exam. IIMs and corporate India’s loss meant Nandan and Infosys would go onto become the face of India Emerging.

Those who believe geeks don’t make for good marketeers or brand builders haven’t met Nilekani. For an electrical engineer -- from IIT-Mumbai his networking skills are legendary. He probably remembers the name and face of every second person has ever met. While Infosys itself is the best example of this, his ability to pull together disparate groups towards a common goal was best evidenced by him organizing India’s high decibel and very effective `India Everywhere campaign at The World Economic Forum at Davos in 2006. Guests were wooed with ipods loaded with Hindi pop and pashmina shawls. On the last day, at the party hosted by Team India , global movers and shakers grooved with Indian models and glitterati to DJ Aqeels beats.

He and Murthy – who’s nine years older to Nandan and the abiding force in is life formed a symbiotic relationship. While the older man set the vision and leadership needed to nurture a company founded on Rs 10,000 borrowed from the founders wives to a multi billion dollar global enterprise, Nandan provided the marketing, networking abilities. His ability to schmooze with investors, clients, media and even competitors is the stuff of legends.

Nandan was Murthy’s chosen understudy and it was natural that he succeed Murthy to the CEOs post in 2002. Five years later Kris Gopalakrishna took over executive responsibilities. Though never articulated publicly, Murthy’s desire to give his founding team members a shot at running the company meant that Nandan found at an early age (52) pushed to the co-chairman’s role.

Since then he has tried to keep himself busy and useful doing a plethora of things inside and outside Infosys. He believes with his wife Rohini that they need to give back substantial chunks of their wealth to society. His interest in urban affairs meant he headed the Bangalore Agenda Task Force when SM Krishna was the chief minister. He’s today on the board of ICRIER, a member of the National Advisory Group on e-governance, of Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission and President of NCAER.

Finding himself at `cross-roads, his ability to influence policy from the outside reach its natural limit, Nandans now chosen to directly participate in the setting and implementation of policy that will hopefully benefit millions. With his kids daughter Janhavi and son Nihaar -- at Yale University and with no interest in two of India’s biggest passions movies and cricket he has all the time and money in the world to chase his dreams now.