N.R. Narayana Murthy is the Chief Mentor and former CEO of Infosys. He has been included among the world’s top 25 businesmen by the Time Magazine. The world renowned magazine stated that Narayana Murthy is one of the richest men and Infosys, the company he founded in 1981, was the first Indian firm to be listed on NASDAQ. Narayana Murthy has not sold his soul for money and success, according to the Time magazine. One of the country’s most admired men, he is ever vigilant about his employees well being – granting stock options, building exercise facilities and spreading values as much as wealth.
Infosys was declared the Best Employer in India, for the second successive year in 2002 in a survey conducted Hewitt Associates and Business Today. On the occassion of his 60th birthday on August 20, 2006, Narayana Murthy announced his retirement from the executive post as Chairman of Infosys. He was also conferred Padma Vibhushan 2008, the second highest Civilian Award in India. He was also honoured with ‘The Legion of Honour’ in January 2008, the highest honour of the French Government. In 2010, the American National Academy of Engineers (NAE) elected Narayana Murthy as a foreign Member.
Azim Hashim Premzi is another famous icon of the Indian IT industry. He is Chairman of Wipro and has been singled out by Financial Times as the only Indian billionaire, out of a list of world’s top 25 billionaires, ‘who have changed the life of people’. He has been adjudged as one of the 10 richest tech billionaires in the world.
Known as ‘Indian Bill Gates’, Azim Premzi has been lending financial support to education in rural areas donating $5 million a year, besides working with the charitable foundation of Bill Gates. Azim Premzi has been listed among top 30 global entrepreneurs. Premzi is currently the second richest Indian with a personal wealth of $17 billion according to Forbes 2010.