When he turns 65 on 20 August 2011,
Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy will follow one of
his many mandates by stepping off the board as the
non-executive chairman of Infosys. Earlier than
that, Sudhir Mohan Trehan will relinquish his
position of being the managing director of Crompton
Greaves (CG), and hand over the baton to his
successor. Having had the privilege of serving on
both boards — Infosys since 2000 and CG from 2004 —
I think of both as two of the most incredible and
respect-worthy corporate leaders that I have had the
honour to know.
As I reconcile to the fact that from the board
meetings of October this year we can no longer pull
the leg of Infosys’ chairman of three decades, I
return to various memories since 1998, when I first
met him after he was appointed chairman of the
Confederation of Indian Industry’s Corporate
Governance Committee. The meeting was in Bombay and
I had gone to the building’s entrance to receive
him. It was the peak office hour and Goswami was by
the pavement, eagle eyed for some swanky hired limo.
Suddenly, a battered black and yellow taxi pulled up
to the kerb. With a “Hi, Omkar. Have you been
waiting for me?” out steps Murthy, pays the cab, and
traipses up the stairs.
A year later, I had to meet him at Bangalore on a
Sunday. Murthy invited me to the new campus that was
being built at the Electronics City. On an
incredibly hot day, with dust, mud, concrete, bricks
and steel all over the place, a beatific yet
hyper-energetic pajama-kurta clad Murthy with his
jeans-T-shirt clad chela, Mohandas Pai, decided to
take me everywhere as they inspected each nook and
cranny. You could see the excitement in Murthy’s
eyes. It came from crafting world class facilities
to create the Infosys dreams.
I remember our being together for a CII conference
in San Francisco in 1999. Always conscious of costs,
Murthy had checked out of his hotel in the morning
and arrived at the conference with his suitcase.
After the session was over, he asked me if he
‘crash’ at my room for a couple of hours to catch up
on lost sleep. So, while I was roaming around Union
Square in the afternoon, Murthy took a nap. The
evening was spent at a colleague’s house eating home
food and then dropping Murthy at the airport for God
knows where. In that era, with Infosys’ top line
being around Rs.600 crore, he used to travel 300
plus days a year to connect with actual and
potential customers. The French say, “Plus ça
change, plus c’est la même chose” — or the more
things change, the more they remain the same. It
must be so with Murthy and travelling. Even today as
Infosys clocks over US$ 6 billion of revenues, for
reasons known best to himself, if he knows at all,
Murthy must travel at least 300 days a year.
Airlines love him like no other.
Murthy-ism’s abound. Here are my favourites.
“Profits are an opinion. Cash in the bank is fact.”
“A company with dirty toilets can’t be great.” “In
God we trust. For everything else, bring data on the
table.” “A clear conscience is the softest pillow in
the world.” And “When in doubt, disclose”. I know
some industrialists can’t stand the man — his
aphorisms, his image and his values which he often
wears on his sleeves. To them, the answer is this:
“First create a US$ 6 billion company that earns
over US$ 1.5 billion as net profits. Give away
Rs.60,000 crore as stock options to create wealth
for employees. Build some of the finest campuses in
the world. Then criticise.”
The world knows much about Murthy. Not so Sudhir
Trehan. A lifer at CG, Sudhir is one of the best
managers that I have known. A man with an incredible
eye for detail; where nothing escapes his attention;
who lives by the honesty of facts; has numbers at
his finger-tips; leads from the front; can admit
mistakes; and is universally looked up to as a
leader par excellance. When Sudhir took over as CG’s
managing director in 2000, the company was in crisis
— with disparate businesses, a loss of Rs.147 crore,
and and debt-equity ratio was 2.33:1. Today, CG has
revenues in excess of US$ 2 billion. It’s top-line
has been growing at a compound annual rate of 25%;
and its debt-equity ratio is 0.14:1. Very few
companies in the world can claim ten consecutive
years of sequential growth in sales, income, EBITDA,
EBIT, PBT and PAT — over a rapidly expanding global
base of operations. Sudhir has emphatically shown
that it is possible. Without missing a beat or a
stride.
May India be blessed by many such corporate leaders
in the years ahead.
Published: Business World, June 2011
