Narayana Murthy has revealed his one ‘big regret’: keeping wife Sudha Murty away from Infosys, the tech giant founded by him and six others. He even said that she was ‘more qualified’ than all seven of them.
“I had this feeling that good corporate governance means not bringing family into it. Because those days, it was only family rule, all kinds of children used to come and run the company. There used to be a violation of all laws,” the billionaire businessman told CNBC TV18.
The former Infosys CEO, 77, however, acknowledged that he was ‘wrongly idealistic’ in not allowing Sudha Murty join what is now the second-largest IT firm in the country. It must be noted here that it was Sudha Murty who gave Narayana Murthy the seed capital of ₹10,000 to set up Infosys (with Nandan Nilekani, Kris Gopalakrishnan, SD Shibulal, K Dinesh, NS Raghavan, and Ashok Arora).
Murthy, meanwhile, responded with an emphatic ‘no’ over a possible future Infosys role for son Rohan, the software major’s ex-vice president who now has his own AI venture, called Soroco.
“I think he is even stricter than I am in these ideas (not allowing family members to join one’s own company). (Though) He will never say that. Never, never,” said Narayana Murthy.
The senior couple are also parents to a daughter, Akshata, who has never worked at her father’s company and owns a 0.93% stake in it. Her spouse is none other than Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of the United Kingdom.
